Maternal Instinct
by Chaltab
Summary: A Teen Titan Legends story. It was just supposed to be a simple bank robbery, but when the HIVE Five accidentally unleashes an evil magic force in the building, the Titans and HIVE will have to team up to teach their 'Mother' a lesson.
1. When Azarath Freezes Over

**Author's note**: This story deviates from the canon of the show in several respects, though the only one truly important to your comprehension is the existence of several original Titans. Savior was created by Legend Maker, and her story 'Black and White' is the starting point for this alternate timeline. Gauntlet was created by author BobCat and his unfinished 'Epic of Gauntlet' explains how he joined the team. Scalpel and Sophie were created by author Jedi-And and their story is explained in his 'Flashing Lights and Sounds'—there are quite a few other stories with this set of Titans, but those are the main ones. I don't own Titans or the Legends characters—I'm just playing in their world.

* * *

On a small, unnamed island in the Atlantic, uncharted except by satellite photos, there rested a volcano. Inside its dormant precipice, there rested the new base: The new location of the HIVE Academy for Extraordinary Young People. 

"You'd think," Wilby Tierney said as he set a heavy box down, his massive form feeling very relieved as the weight vanished… "That after all this time Brother Blood would be able to prevent his bases from being infiltrated and/or destroyed so easily."

"You would think. How many bases does this make now that he's been through?" asked Progeny, his disembodied hands screwing in light bulbs as he walked down the high-ceilinged hall. Arturo Nicanor was relatively new to the Hive academy and wanted to make sure his facts were accurate.

Gizmo, the senior (well, senior in service, not in age) of the group on this end of the new volcano-concealed school, looked back at him and snorted. "Lemme think. There was the snot munching first one that the Headmistress built. Then the Crud-licking second one underwater that Snotborg blew up. Then the kludge-eating Titans East Tower, and the school that Crud-munching Savior infiltrated. And the Sky Base."

"Are you sure you named them all?" Wilby asked. As Rhinoceros Beetle, his massive strength allowed him to move the heavy boxes full of supplies and machines with ease.

"Of course I'm sure, snot face! I'm the genius here!"

Progeny, an immensely handsome villain, shook his head smirking as he finished the last light bulb. "No need to be so rude, Mikron."

"Don't call me that! My name is Gizmo!" Gizmo, aka Mikron O'Jeneus, shouted at the wall. He began to fume when his outburst only increased Progeny's amusement, however.

"GIZMO!" Mammoth blurted, entering the hall with another heavy box. "Brother Blood says he needs to talk to you. Why _you _I have no idea. He still hasn't got done fawning over Buzz Bomb."

"Crud," muttered Gizmo as he left. "That can only mean I'm in for it big time."

As the door slid shut behind the diminutive villain, Wilby spoke. "What is his deal?" He reverted from his massive "rhinoceros beetle" form to his normal human form, a small nerdy kid. He took a puff on his asthma inhaler. "He's been like this ever since the big explosion in Paris."

"Isn't it obvious?" Progeny asked. "I can't believe you all. So blind. The whole school knows he had a crush on Jinx. The whole **_world_** knows he detests Cyborg. How do you expect him to react when the girl he wants runs off with the guy he hates?"

"Well, _you_ look like you're enjoying rubbing it in, Arturo" Mammoth said.

"Of course I am, Baran. The nicest guy on earth would pay money to see someone as annoying as Gizmo get his heart crushed. Crushed figuratively, of course."

"Yeah," said Wilby. "But it's easy for you to say when you've slept with pretty much every female in the school." It was an obvious sneer.

"That," said a new voice, "and the fact that he is mostly trying to cover up a more personal frustration."

The three students turned to see the psychotic telepath Psimon enter the room. Though he may have looked like an old geezer with a bowl on his head, his increased age was really the result of the experiments that had given him his super-powered brain. He had been there at Paris when that accursed Titan had, in unthinking rage, almost destroyed them all, and joined the HIVE Academy for kicks afterwards.

Psimon had a mind and a half. If someone would only fix that cruel black heart of his, he could potentially make a decent leader.

"What frustration?" Progeny asked dismissively, looking away from the telepath's gaze.

"The fact that the only girl you _never_ bedded here was Jinx," he said. "I don't even have to read you mind to see it."

"Shut up." Arturo turned and crossed his arms. "Jinx is a turncoat. She isn't worthy of me."

"Yeah," Mammoth muttered, "Because nobody is _that_ bad."

"Oooh!" Psimon remarked with exaggerated awe. "Was that a hint of wit I just heard in that big dumb brain of yours, Baran?"

In the next instant, Psimon had been knocked halfway across the room by Mammoth's massive fist. "Enough, Psimon!" he barked. He turned to Arturo and said, "You sure it's Gizmo that's the most annoying guy on the planet?"

"They both think they know everything," Progeny muttered.

The door opened again, and Gizmo reentered, hovering above the ground with his jetpack before stopping and sitting on one of the smaller boxes. For once, he didn't say anything.

"What did Blood say?" Mammoth asked.

"We have to pull a major job by this time tomorrow night or Blood's gonna have our hides!" he shouted.

"Bah!" Mammoth grunted. "How exactly are we going to pull that off? We're understaffed. XL and Billy are dead thanks to that spikey haired emo punk, the elementals bailed on us to go hero again, and most of the newer students couldn't tell a bank vault from a candy bar."

"You couldn't tell a bank vault from a candy bar two years ago, Baran!" Gizmo shot back. "Look, it doesn't matter how we pull it off, we just have to get it done. The problem is, the only adequate bank that we can fly to, rob, and be back here in time…"

Gizmo pressed a button on his belt and a small hologram of a thirty story building appeared in front of him.

"JUMP CITY NATIONAL?" Progeny blurted. "You think you could have picked some bank in a city where there are no superheroes?"

"They don't put banks this big in cities with no superheroes these days, pit sniffer," Gizmo jeered.

"So how are we gonna pull this off?" Mammoth asked. He snorted as Psimon joined the circle around the hologram. "The Titans are stronger than they ever were now that that demon kid Metatron joined their team."

"Luckily," Gizmo said, "Meta-snot is weak to cold… which gives me an idea."

"So how many of _us_ are we going to send?"

"Ten," Gizmo said. "one for each person who lives in that tower. We'll be ready for anything they can throw at us."

"Which ten, though?" asked Progeny. "Preferably at least one girl so that I can show off to her."

"It's amazing your talent doesn't creep girls out," Mammoth barked.

"I take it I'm not part of this?" Wilby asked.

Gizmo shook his head. "We need a strong man here to help with the moving in, and Mammoth has invulnerability, unlike you."

"I'm going," Progeny said. "I want a shot at Terra. Maybe I can seduce her over to the bad side."

"Wishful thinking," Psimon remarked.

"Shut up, Psimon. By the way, you're going too," Gizmo said. "As much as I hate to admit it you're the one most qualified among us to defeat Raven. Mammoth, you know how to get under Scalpel's skin. He gets sloppy when he fights you."

"Angel can fight Savior—her razor wings verses his Shimmer is a no contest."

"Baran," Gizmo said, "Never under estimate Savior. Never. He is the kludge munching wad of snot that infiltrated us, remember!"

"Right…"

"But Angel is a good idea. She's coming whether she wants to or not. Kid Wykkid will be good against Robin. Libre and that big stupid mask of his will disarm Gauntlet into doing something monumentally stupid… hopefully. My intelligence" (Psimon snorted at that word, causing Gizmo to pause long enough to glare at him) "indicates that his gauntlet fails when his confidence is weak. So all we have to do is make sure he thinks they are gonna lose."

"I would suggest we send Private Hive as back-up," said Psimon, "And INSTIGATOR can turn that Beast Boy into road kill."

"That still leaves one more member," Mammoth said, counting his fingers to make sure.

Psimon glanced at Gizmo with a wicked smile. "I do have an idea about that, he said."

"Oh, no…" Mammoth knew what was coming, and he didn't like it.

"Shimmer can keep Metatron in check. Transmute the air in his lungs into ice or the blood in his veins to reactor coolant…"

"No!" Baran barked. "Leave Selinda out of this. She isn't ready."

"You always say that," Gizmo complained. "She 'wasn't ready' when the Boogeymen attacked us, she 'wasn't ready' when the Jackal showed up—well she's still alive! For cripes sake," Gizmo flew above Mammoth grabbed his hair, and began shaking his head back and forth, "She punched out Buzz Bomb. Did you ever punch out Buzz Bomb?"

The giant youth reached up a massive hand and swatted Gizmo away. Then he looked down, and finally muttered, "Alright. But if my sister gets hurt, I'm taking it out of your scrawny hide, Mikron."

"I'm _NOT _MIKRON!" he shouted. "**_GIZ-MO!"_**

**

* * *

**

"Life is good," Noel Collins said with a smirk as Raven removed her lips from his. "I'm _so_ glad to be back in my own universe I might even go easy on Rob for a change." The figure embracing Raven was a tall, fairly well muscled young man in his early twenties. He wore a white pair of jeans and a white leather jacket over a light blue shirt that matched his eyes. The jacket bore a stylized S on the arm. But his most distinguishing physical trait was without a doubt his massive shock of snow-white hair atop his head, defying gravity in a manner that would make a Super Saiyan proud.

"Famous last words," Noel's girlfriend said with a wry smirk. "The day Gauntlet and Savior get along is the day Azarath freezes over."

"Azarath doesn't even have weather," Noel pointed out. Noel, alias Savior, was the first youth to join the Teen Titans since the original five members founded it nearly six years ago. "It can't freeze over."

Raven's wry smile deepened, and Noel shook his head ruefully. This let her know she had made her point. The aforementioned Titan Gauntlet, the seventh youth to take up that mantle, had been assigned to the team by court order after being caught robbing a bank in his home town of Uberton, South Carolina, the city with the highest density metahuman population in the United States.

Not that he was a career criminal, mind. In fact, he had stopped robberies in that very same bank earlier that week. He simply justified his theft as money the bank 'owed' him to fund his war on crime. (Which, translated into the language of Robert Candide, meant buying as much junk food, chewing gum, and caffeinated beverages as he felt he needed to stay alert.)

Noel and Robert famously disputed and fought like an old couple on just about every issue imaginable. Noel was a hardliner, politically conservative, and usually quite the jerk, whereas Robert was carefree, politically oblivious, and even more of a jokester than Beast Boy. On more occasions than Raven or Robin would care to admit, the spats between Noel and Robert had degenerated into physical violence to some degree or another, with Robert usually on the receiving end.

But that, for the moment, was not bothering Noel at all.

After a while of just letting Raven hold him, Noel stepped back and sat in his favorite chair within the Titans Tower ops room, sipping a cup of tea with his girlfriend. Nothing really needed to be said—Noel, who had recently returned from an accidental visit to another universe, had handed a stack of notebooks and several _SD_ cards worth of photos to Robin and told him he was sick of thinking about this other world, and never wanted it to enter his consciousness again. Raven could sense how he felt, he knew, and if she wanted the details, she could just read the report Robin would eventually force Savior to type up.

With that misadventure out of the way, Noel could sit and just be with Raven—_his _Raven—and enjoy the tea she had made for them.

"You do realize that from our perspective you were only gone five minutes, right?" Raven asked.

Noel nodded. And he didn't care. Life was too good at the moment…

Which, of course, couldn't possibly last in ANY universe.

"BOOOYAH!" Cyborg screamed, as the pneumatic door hissed open and the couple's quite time was brought to an abrupt end. Victor Stone, Beast Boy, and the aforementioned Robert "Gauntlet" Candide strode into the room, all holding the latest handheld system, the immensely popular Gamestation GO. "I just totally whupped all your butts!"

"Only because you got the leader shell," Beast Boy muttered. "That thing is so cheap!"

Gauntlet, however, was a bit less of a sore looser. "Don't complain about it, Gar. Turnabout is fair play in Mario Kart." Gauntlet, the youngest Titan besides Beast Boy, was the embodiment of everything Noel was not. His namesake Gauntlet was a techno-magical artifact developed by an ancient race known as the Old Ones. Whenever he didn't need it, it existed as a small ring permanently bonded to a finger on his right hand. In its active form, it became a metal sheath that covered his entire forearm, and projected a powerful and malleable yellow energy field that could be used for offense and defense.

Otherwise, Gauntlet wore absolutely nothing that identified him has a hero. Not having a secret identity, Robert Candide saw no reason to wear a mask. He has a mess of spikey hair on top of his head, though it was much shorter and less upright than Noel's, and similarly blue eyes. His 'costume' consisted of a white T-Shirt with black sleeves and a big G in the middle, and a pair of blue jeans.

The absolutely nothing included the conspicuos lack of a Titan Communicator from its usual place on his belt loop, which Noel noticed immediately. After what the Brain had pulled with the communicator fiasco, Noel had become hypersensitive to any such potential security hole. Robin hadn't assigned him the position of tactical leader for nothing, after all.

The fact that Noel hadn't realized the tactical error in Robin's communication plan before it could be used against them was a constant thorn in his side.

A thorn that Robert Candide exploited with gleeful, reckless abandon.

"Where is you communicator?" Savior demanded of Gauntlet as soon as he had noticed.

Gauntlet's eyes widened. "Oh no! I must have left it at the game store! What am I going to do!"

"YOU'RE GOING TO RUN, DRIVE, OR SWIM IF YOU HAVE TO, back to the mainland and FIND IT!" Noel barked, jumping out of his seat just to get in Robert's face. "We can't afford another disaster."

"Did someone say disaster?" Tara Markov asked as she entered the room, mostly because she heard Beast Boy. "Don't tell me you've found another timeline where I turn into a statue…"

Terra was of course referencing the fact that the Titans had categorized at least two other realities where Terra had betrayed the Titans to Slade and in the end sacrificed herself to stop a volcano from destroying Jump City.

In this universe, however, Gauntlet had stopped her from leaving and joining Slade, and though his motive (hoping she would be his girlfriend) wasn't exactly selfless, Gauntlet's action ultimately saved the Titans a lot of pain…

And when the great battle known as the Last Wish came around, Terra had proved herself above and beyond anything expected of her, and for a while lost her powers completely as a result.

Gar and Tara embraced briefly, and watched the ruckus.

"I know it must be here somewhere!" Gauntlet said. The panic in his voice, though, was clearly off, even as Gauntlet gave himself a frantic frisking, insisting it had to be in the Tower, that he hadn't removed it in town.

And Savior's chagrin only increased. "Rob," Noel bit out, "you obviously don't have it on you. Get back to the city and FIND IT!"

"Noel," Raven said, closing her book and hovering over near her child… er… boyfriend. Mental slip, she told herself. Honest. "Please calm down. I'm sure Robert hasn't lost the communicator. It probably fell off in the T-Car."

"OH! WAIT!" Robert suddenly blurted, a big, evil smirk on his face. "HERE it is." He reached into his back pocket and pulled it out. "Silly me."

This was of course, the _wrong _thing to say. "YOU IGNORANT LITTLE…" Savior let out a flurry of insults and curses at Gauntlet that can't be repeated in a T-Rated fic, and reached out to grab Robert's shirt and pull him close for a good chew-out. But his arm was suddenly restrained by black energy. Raven stepped up next to him and pushed his arm down.

"No, Noel," she said, empathically projecting soothing emotions to calm his anger…."Allow me."

"Whu?" Gauntlet blurted, and a split second later he was encased in black energy and hurled across the room into the kitchen sink. "OUCH!" he said. Then he slid down the wall and doubled over, falling off the sink and landing flat on his face. "Ouch again," he muttered to the floor.

"Whoa," Terra said. "That was… unexpected."

Raven shook her head. "He's been a Titan for nearly four years. By now he should know _not_ to mess with Noel like that."

"I swear I was trying to be nicer than I felt like," Savior said, blinking, still surprised by Raven's actions.

"As I said, dear," Raven said, her wry smile returning. "'When Azarath freezes over'."

**

* * *

**

Atop the roof of the Tower, the scene was quit different. Jinx stood, observed by Starfire, as she flipped, jumped, and half-twisted her with through a flurry of low-energy starbolts, and then landed on her feet perfectly.

"How was I?" she asked.

"Marvelous—it took Robin twice as many tries to get through that pattern without getting hit once.

Jinx glanced up at the toweringly tall Tamaranian princess with a small amount apprehension in her eyes. "Really?"

"Oh, yes, Friend Llarenes," Starfire answered, calling Jinx by her real first name. "Your agility is, as the earth expression goes, 'the top notch'."

Jinx turned and sat down on the roof, pressing her knees against her chest and hugging them. "Starfire?" Jinx asked, then trailed off. "I…"

Koriand'r of Tamaran regarded the former villainess for a moment, and started to understand what was going on… "Jinx… Is it that you fear you aren't cut out for this.. job?"

"All my life I was told I was bad luck. Even now it is hard for me to believe I can do any good for anyone…"

"But, Jinx, remember the battle in Paris? You helped stop the Brotherhood of Evil."

"But was I really acting to fight evil, or was that just to get back at Madam Rouge for betraying me?" Jinx pulled down a lock of her pink hair, which she had untied from its former state, mostly because of its resemblance to demonic horns, and began twisting it around her finger nervously.

"Jinx, I cannot answer that question. Only you can."

"Yeah," a new voice interjected, "That, and hey, if someone like me can be one of the good guys, anyone can." Jinx looked up to see the new figure and flashed a small smile at him. His Titan alias was Scalpel, and as far as looks went, he appeared to be a monster. His skin was a shade of grey a bit lighter than that of Raven's, but his hands and bare feet had metal grafted onto the backs of them.

He was an alien, a member of a race called the Blacktrinians, who had been at war with Tamaran for one hundred years until just a few years ago. He wore a red jacket and red pants, with a purple cape hanging from his shoulders. His 'shirt' was a white armor plate with an odd zigzagging button pattern up the middle. His mouth was full of extremely sharp teeth, and his light-blue hair was covered by a small akubra the same color as his jacket. His eyeballs were black, but had burning blue irises, and attached to his back was a massive staff with a blade on the end, called a glaive.

Jinx had once heard is real Blacktrinian name pronounced, and had given up on ever trying to get it right. So she settled for the English translation: Nigel Hastings.

"Hey…" she said. Nigel, called Scalpel because he was the Titans team doctor, walked forward, his three-digited hands clanging together in a clicking noise that Jinx realized was the closest thing his race could approximate to human clapping. "Scalpel… what's up?"

Scalpel shrugged. "Robin told me Starfire was up here drilling you, and I thought I'd come watch… Or more accurately Robin suggested I do so."

"To keep an eye on me?"

Scalpel sweatdropped. "Well, now that you mention it, Robin didn't give a reason… but knowing him…"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Jinx muttered.

"Do not worry," Starfire said. "Robin has trouble trusting anyone."

"He threw me out of the Tower completely for a while after…" Scalpel looked at the ground dejectedly, and glanced at Starfire. Koriand'r knew that he was trying to avoid bringing up the circumstances of his ejection. It had been no fault of his own—Robin and Starfire simply couldn't have children naturally. Tamaranians and humans were not genetically compatible, and even if a child formed, the body of the mother would reject it.

Robin had blamed Scalpel for the death of his child, a death he couldn't have prevented.

Jinx nodded, and got up. "I guess we're done for now…" She didn't want to admit what she really wanted—to go see Cyborg. He was the entire reason she had even agreed to stay at the Tower this weekend. With that demon named after angels away and the android that normally stayed in the basement trying to prepare a new team of Titans in San Francisco of all places, they'd had some extra space…

"If you wish, we can go to the mall of shopping or play the Dance Dance Revolution."

"No thanks, Starfire," Jinx said, walking to the door. "Maybe later."

* * *

A generic city set the state for an adversarial battle… Spiked hair fell to the asphalt, following the head it was attached to, even as the missile streaked by and blew up a car in the distance. Robin rolled out of the way of the follow-up spray of bullets and hurled a birdarang at the source, causing the machine gun mounted on his adversary's right arm to misfire and explode. 

As fast as he could he jumped to his feet and darted forward, whipping out his bo-staff and smashing the robot's head around in a complete 360 degree. It's single red 'eye' narrowed—meaning at least one weapon had a lock on him. Robin dived out of the way even as a claw exploded from the chassis of the robot and tried to grab and/or impale the Boy Wonder.

But Robin saw his opening, and rolled away. He stood holding is bo defiantly, daring the robot to come at him again. The bot fired its last rocket, which Robin met with a birdarang, destroying the lethal projectile. Then the claw came again, and Robin threw up an explosive disk even as he hit the ground.

He heard, rather than saw, the disk make contact and stick, and smirked as the claw retracted into the robot's chassis…

Half of a second later, a muffled BOOM signaled the end of the battle, as the robot's smoking head fell off its shoulders.

The city around him turned into a light show and melted back into a simple large room—sort of like a holodeck or X-Men danger room—even as Starfire entered from the far end.

Robin picked up the head of the robot—which was quite real, unlike the rest of the exercise—and examined the back of it, and inside. He had to make sure there were no hidden surprises that Cyborg had missed reprogramming it. After all, it was originally built by Slade.

"Tim," Starfire greeted her boyfriend. She had a way with him—she could sense when things were amiss and Robin didn't have to say anything. "What is wrong?"

"Kory," he said, "Slade has been in a coma for nearly three years, and yet we still find his parting gifts. More and more of these 'Omega' Sladebots crawl their way out of the woodwork every month."

"True, but they have not proven especially difficult to defeat."

"They adapt. Every new bot is slightly different, and their deployment has grown less random, less sporadic. It is as if there is something intelligent guiding them."

"Tim, please do not worry yourself with this. Slade is no longer our problem." Starfire pulled Robin close and kissed him on the forehead, then on the mouth.

Robin pulled away with a sigh, then dropped the head on the pile of junk the rest of the robot had become. "I hope you're right, Kory."

As Robin walked toward the exit. "Tim, is it true that you wanted Scalpel to 'keep the eye' on Jinx?

Tim froze, stiffened and glanced back over his shoulder. He didn't want to talk about this. Seriously, why _should_ he trust a former villain? So what she _said_ she was reformed, that she had given up crime. So what if Kid Flash vouched for her? And Cyborg. Robin had seen far too many villains fake reform in Gotham to every be able to fully trust a former criminal, from Cobblepot to Poison Ivy, from Harvey Dent to Harley Quinn. It was ingrained in his psyche, the growing fear that reform was simply impossible.

He didn't answer verbally, but he knew, unfortunately, that his body language was all the answer Starfire needed.

* * *

Later that afternoon, just after lunch, Robin and Raven were busying doing the dishes (thought it was actually Gar and Rob's day to do them, they were as they put it, 'too busy'… which meant absorbed in a prolonged game of Ultimate Destructor) while most of the rest of the Titans sat around waiting for something to happen. 

"Gar!" Terra insisted. "We've been planning to see _Wicked Scary IV_ for weeks. Put that game down and come on!"

"Sorry, can't right now! If I leave they might get our flag and turn the tide."

Gauntlet interjected, "He'll give you a rain check, honest."

Tara Markov sighed deeply. "Gar, if you don't come on right now—I'll fill your moped's engine with dirt… or something."

"Mopeds run on battery power," Beast Boy reminded her without even glancing away from the screen.

Tara sweatdropped.

"Who the heck is this guy?" Gauntlet asked. "This 'RagNaRok0201'… whoever he is, he's good. I bet he's hacking."

Beast Boy shook his head. "If anyone is hacking it's this 'YinwithoutYang057'… Bullets seem to bounce right off of him! It's like he's made of rubber!"

"In that case you can't win," Terra said. "So it's hopeless. That means we should go to the movie. Which starts in TEN MINUTES."

"We're almost done," Garfield insisted.

"Besides, as long as Chaltab is our author, we have a chance!" Gauntlet added.

CRASH!

Then from across the room, a new female voice commented. "Hey, Tara! If you're so eager for something to do, why not go fix the fourth wall!"

"Shut it, Tubby!" Tara shot back, addressing Sophie Matthews. Sophie had been an undertaker for years, and had actually buried several people involved with the Titans in one way or another. After Robin had kicked Scalpel out of the Tower, Sophie had taken him in. Then, when Scalpel returned shortly after Sophie had been made homeless (by her own brother, no less), he had invited her to stay at the Tower, and Sophie and Nigel Hastings had gradually fallen in love. An odd couple to say the least.

For whatever reason, however, Tara hated Sophie with the white-hot intensity of 1000 suns, and rubbed in the fact that Sophie was hardly a little person incessantly.

"I'll get it," Scalpel—who was sitting with Sophie—commented, not wanting yet another fight to break out between the girls. Dragging a tub of mortar out of the kitchen cabinet, Scalpel got to work on repairing the fourth wall…

And no sooner had he re-laid the first brick that the alarm in the tower started blaring off.

The massive flat screen TV in ops slide out of its hiding place in the ceiling and displayed a map of Jump City, with a flashing beacon indicating a crime scene.

"Looks like Jump City National," Savior observed. "Who would be crazy enough to try there?"

Robin put the plate he was washing down and watched as the screen image changed to show the front of the bank. The police had cordoned off the area, but there were hostages inside. Robin goggled when he saw who was standing at the door.

"INSTIGATOR and Private Hive," he muttered.

"That means there is a list of about thirty different villains we could be dealing with in there," Savior said, "and all of them have a grudge against me."

Quiet enough for only Robin to hear, Raven whispered, "Who _doesn't_ have a grudge against you, dear?"

Robin had to admit it was both funny and true, but grudge or no grudge they had to have Savior with them in a fight that could potentially be so big.

Cyborg, on the other hand, had some less tactical immediate concerns. "Jinx, hon… are you sure you're up to this? You can stay here if you want to…"

Jinx shook her head sharply, her hair again tied up to resemble horns for practicality's sake. "I'm going. If they think the fact I used to be their de facto leader is some sort of protection, they're wrong. They were probably the worst subordinates ever anyway."

Cyborg looked her in the eyes and saw that she wasn't going to budge on this issue. "Well, then, I guess there is only one thing left to be said…"

Robin said it. "**TITANS, GO!"**

* * *

The final score appeared on the screen, and Gauntlet and Beast Boy were in tears. 

"This is totally NOT FAIR!" Beast Boy blurted. "How could we lose?"

"Chaltab," sobbed Gauntlet, "Why have you betrayed us! You're supposed to be the fair one!"

Suddenly, white strands of energy called the Shimmer shot in from the other room, grabbed both Gauntlet and Beast Boy by the necks, and jerked them out of their seats. "We're GOING," Savior barked at them, using his metahuman talent to drag them away into battle with the forces of evil…

* * *

"Sergeant Gizmo!" Private Hive shouted as he ran from the door to the middle of the bank's first story atrium. "INSTIGATOR says he has detected incoming Titans. What are your orders, sir?" 

Gizmo sweatdropped as he tried to recall the proper military lingo. "Fall back to the inside, and get ready for a fight!" he said at last. "Crud munching Titans. I knew they couldn't just leave us alone."

"Did you really expect them too?" Progeny asked, stepping up beside Gizmo.

Gizmo ordered Private Hive to go warn the others, then began muttering something. He asked Progeny for a progress report.

"Mammoth and Libre have loaded nearly half the contents of the vault into Psimon's little pocket dimension, so I guess it's going alright—"

"**_Guess again!"_**

Gasping, Arturo and Mikron whirled around towards the source of Cyborg's voice in time to see INSTIGATOR fill their vision before slamming into them and knocking them backwards across the teller's counter and into the wall next to the vault door.

INSTIGATOR assumed his ball form and rolled out of the corner, crushing the teller counter, then deploying in front of his attackers.

"Arturo," Gizmo whispered, "stay down. Wait for my signal." Gizmo deployed his backpack's spider legs and jumped out in front of the counter to face his foes… only to gasp when he saw the line up: Robin, Starfire, Cyborg, Beast Boy, Raven, Savior, Gauntlet, Scalpel, Terra, and…

Metatron, the persistently erstwhile tenth Titan was nowhere to be seen, but instead…

"Jinx! You traitor!" Gizmo screamed.

"I told you it was nothing personal," she said. "I just realized what losers you are—what losers we all were. Brother Blood, the Brotherhood, it doesn't matter. We were always doing someone else's bidding. You're still with Brother Blood…?"

"So, what's it to you, turncoat?"

The three Hive members, Gizmo, INSTIGATOR, and Private Hive, were quickly joined by Mammoth and Libre.

"You had to go and become a law-abiding do-gooder," Mammoth grumbled.

Libre, just nodded his assent.

"Hey, guys, if it hasn't occurred to you, you're out numbered two to one. So why don't you just give up and make this easy on yourselves," Beast Boy said, turning into a gorilla.

Gauntlet slid over and handed him a pamphlet from his back pocket, the cover of which read _Ten Really Good Reasons Not To Underestimate Supervillains._

"You kludge-brains think we're still the Hive Five, don't you? We're not! We're the Hive Five—TIMES TWO!"

As Gizmo said these words, shadows erupted from the ground, and transformed into Kid Wykkid. Progeny jumped over the teller counter and assumed a battle position. Psimon exited the vault, his hands and eyes glowing, even as Angel swooped down from the high ceiling of the bank's massive atrium. And a nearby large globe melted into liquid… and the elemental-transmutation metahuman Shimmer, Mammoth's sister, walked out of it…

"I guess the odds are more even than I thought.. heh.." Gar gulped.

"I don't care if we're out numbered fifty-to-one," Savior said. "We're taking them down. Titans, you know all their powers, you know whom you're good against and who you're not. Choose your opponents wisely."

At the same time Savior was speaking, Gizmo silently cursed the fact he had mostly brought Shimmer in order to transmute up some ice to disable Metatron—only to find him replaced by Jinx!

Robin stepped forward. "You know the drill. You're all under arrest. And if you resist, we're going to thrash you until the resistance is thrashed out of you."

Gizmo growled, but decided that if anything, Jinx's presence was a blessing. After all, even if she had no overt weaknesses, she wasn't as strong as Metatron.

"HIVE, ATTACK!" he shouted.

Robin shook his head. "They never learn. Titans, **_TOGETHER!"_**

Both sides charged… And both were completely oblivious… to a danger that lurked…

In a pie.

_**Hehehehe-hehehe!**_

_**

* * *

**_  
**Chaltab Presents**

**  
In conjunction with Legend Maker**

**A Teen Titan Legends Story…**

**MATERNAL INSTINCTS**

**

* * *

**  
For the convenience of those who aren't regular Legendsverse readers and/or aren't familiar with the Hive Members:

**Dramatis Personae**

**Teen Titans**

Robin. (Tim Drake) The Boy Wonder, Batman's former apprentice

Starfire. (Kory Anders) Princess of Tamaran, heart of the team.

Cyborg. (Victor Stone )Half man, half machine, the gung-ho strong man.

Beast Boy. (Garfield Logan) Animal changeling, comic relief.

Raven. (Rachel Roth) Daughter of Trigon, Empathic sorceress.

Savior. (Noel Collins) Team jerk, master tactician.

Gauntlet. (Robert Candide) Artifact welder, team goof-off.

Scalpel. (Nigicalnack Hastionfarlock) Blacktrinian blade master, team doctor.

Terra. (Tara Markov) Geokinetic, team beeyotch.

Jinx. (Llarenes Morrath) Bad luck charmstress, former villain.

**Hive 5x2**

Mammoth. (Baran Flinders) Muscle-bound giant, team strong arm.

Gizmo. (Mikron O'Jeneus) Midget genius, team techno-wizard.

Shimmer. (Selinda Flinders) Elemental transmuting sister of Mammoth.

Angel. (Angela Dark) Winged villainess.

Private HIVE. (Leonard) Soldier on the side of Crime.

Psimon. (Simon Jones) Dark psychotic telepath.

INSTIGATOR. Monstrous cyborg, living wrecking ball.

Libre. (Carlos Cortez) Masked wrestler of DOOM.

Kid Wykkid. (Donavon Merseric) Shadow master, silent assassin.

Progeny. (Arturo Nicanor) Body dissembler, ladies' man.

* * *

_ Progeny, Rhinoceros Beetle, owned by Legend Maker. Metatron owned by Prisionero. Viridian owned by Jedi-And. Teen Titans owned by DC Comics.  
_


	2. Bad Luck Amok

_Thanks to Legend Maker, without whom this chapter would be so full of errors I'd be the laughing stock of the non-fanbrat users of this website._

* * *

Terra was the first to charge, jumping over the fists thrown (literally) by Progeny and surfing on pocket-rocks over a series of blasts from Psimon and Gizmo. She then plowed into Shimmer, knocking Mammoth's sister down and rolling her across the room before punching the girl in the face several times… 

Mammoth, in a surprising burst of speed, rushed over and grabbed Terra by the collar. "YOU PUNK! LEAVE MY SISTER ALONE!"

Mammoth threw Terra in the air and delivered a massive punch to her midsection that sent her flying across the atrium and through the wall to the president's room, which overlooked it.

"TERRA!" Beast Boy shouted! "NO!"

"She did something stupid," Savior said to him. "Stay on the line. Don't rush until you see an opening."

Mammoth was busy helping Shimmer, so Noel decided he had HIS opening. He needed to make sure Mammoth got the picture: nobody messed with his team, even if they were conceited, weak-minded, petty, and potentially treacherous little girls throwing stones…

(Wow, that had come out harsher than he had intended. He slowly began to wonder if Chaltab was perhaps trying to win the favor of some entity or person...)

Savior started to run forward into the fray when he was suddenly pushed aside by Gauntlet. He started to step forward again when Cyborg ran into him from behind, spinning him all the way around. Savior grunted, jumped into the air and reached for the ceiling. Several strands of Shimmer shot out and attached themselves somewhere high up in the bank's darkened atrium and Savior went flying above the fray for a better view.

Unfortunately, he was quick to notice that his escape wasn't total. Angel had followed him up, and was charging at him with those accursed razor-wings of hers. Savior immediately recalled all shimmer strands to his body, flipped over in the air as he ascended, and delivered a powerful kick straight downward.

_**KRAKOW!**_

Savior's boot-clad foot made contact with Angel's face and sent the evil teen ricocheting away from him. Savior made a pair of glider wings out of the Shimmer, and sailed back down towards the chaos below…

Meanwhile, Gorilla Beast Boy was grappling with the masked wrestler Libre. "_Voy a ganar_!" Libre grunted, altering the angle of his pressure from straight forward to almost directly towards his own left. This Beast Boy to flip over sideways, his arms crossings as he went down.

Libre jumped into the air in order to stomp on Beast Boy with his considerable weight, but a sonic cannon beam blasted him away from the changeling. Beast Boy transformed into a mouse and chirped a quick 'thank you' to Cyborg, then darted off through the now massive 'forest' of combatants, dodging feet that wanted to step on him… and found Progeny's leg.

Deciding the conceited womanizer could use a lesson in humility, the little green mouse ran up Progeny's leg, making sure his claws were out enough to hurt or at least tickle.

This created a problem for Progeny, as his hands and one eye were detached and, at the moment, trying to deactivate Cyborg from behind…

Beast Boy crawled out of Arturo's shirt and up to the top of his head, then jumped off of him, becoming a squid and attaching himself to Gizmo. Meanwhile, Progeny, finally able to free a hand, brought his erstwhile extremity back, only to wind up punching himself in the face in Beast Boy's absence.

He rubbed his noise and muttered something nasty about Beast Boy, just as Jinx hit him in the chest with a hex blast…

Mammoth sniffed, rather than saw, the pink energy, and threw the dazed Gauntlet to the ground, and ran after the traitor. "Hey Jinx!" he barked, pistoning a fist back. "Chew on this, turncoat!"

Llarenes Morrath turned just in time to see Mammoth's massive fist fill her vision She threw her hands up to shield her face, but went sailing backwards from the punch anyway. But never to be taken down so easily, Jinx flipped over her head in the air and landed on her feet.

Jinx fired a series of hex blasts that had always confounded her adversaries—then realized that it was a pattern she had drilled with Mammoth and Gizmo a hundred times before. Mammoth weaved in and out of the path of the blasts even with his considerable bulk, and any time a beam hit the ground in front of him, he jumped that plot of floor before the bad luck affected him.

Mammoth reached back in preparation for a backhand strike, (which Jinx readied herself for,) only to trip when his feet were caught in what looked like one of Robin's bolas, though Robin was nowhere near. As he fell, Scalpel leapt in and delivered a powerful flying kick to Mammoth's chest, knocking him away from Jinx. "Leave the new girl alone!" he shouted. He landed, then nodded at Jinx, drew his glaive, and charged at Mammoth.

Robin had only lent Scalpel the bola because he knew he wouldn't need it against Kid Wykkid. The shadow-shifter could just turn dark and phase right through any restraint, so incapacitating force was Robin's only option. Kid lashed at him, the ends of his shadowy cloak becoming razor-sharp blades. Robin backflipped away from a series of strikes, then through an ice-disk at Kid Wykkid. The dark teen melted into shadow, and the disk struck the bust of the bank's founder behind him, encasing it in ice.

Robin rolled forward, anticipating the strike from behind him, which never came. He glanced right and kicked left. As it turned out, the kick was the correct direction, because his foot made contact with Kid Wykkid's knee with more force than he'd anticipated, and Robin thought he almost heard a voice somewhere in the wordless hiss of pain that escaped the HIVE student's mouth.

Either way, Robin rolled away and got to his feet as fast as possible, drawing his bo-staff for added range. "You know, you remind me a lot of someone," he taunted the silent teen.

"…" said Kid Wykkid.

"Name was Shadowmaster," Robin continued, not allowing any hint of levity into his voice. "Worked with the Lord of the Night."

Kid Wykkid cocked his head to the side and replied with a disdainful, "…"

"Of course," Robin said, "Shadowmaster is dead now. The Lord killed him in cold blood just because he wanted to be a god. I hope you never have an such—"

Kid Wykkid must have decided he'd either heard enough or didn't want to know where Robin was going with this, because he stepped forward to strike. But his form was sloppy, and Robin saw the attack coming a mile away. He deflected the strike with his bo-staff and swept Kid Wykkid's foot out from under him with his own, then twirled the staff around and struck at Kid Wykkid's head where it hit the ground—only to hit noting but marble tile, as the dark teen had managed to phase into shadow. Robin stifled a curse and ran back towards the fray…

"I take it you've found a new base," Robin grunted as he leapt forward and kicked the charging Gizmo out of the sky. The smaller fighter, supported by the robot spider legs in his backpack, was launched into the air and landed on his back. The legs compensated, lifting him back up.

"Yeah, so what's it to you?" Gizmo shot back, drawing an energy shotgun from the matter compression unit in his backpack. He aimed it at Robin, but the Boy Wonder was out of the way long before he pulled the trigger. Robin waited for Gizmo to start to pump his shotgun and stepped forward. He performed an clean front kick that sent the gun flying from Gizmo's hands, then reversed into a spinning crescent. Gizmo dodged it, however, and put forth two of his spider legs in defense.

"It's not been _that_ long since that sky base was blown out of the air, and three of your strong men are already here," Robin, even as the two continued to exchange blows.

"Why do you care so much, snot brain?" Gizmo shouted, launching a duo of small rockets at Robin, who dodged in between them, causing them to collide behind him and explode.

"Scorcher called.. She said that Wilby Tierney, Rhinoceros Beetle, mysteriously disappeared two weeks ago. Do you know anything about that?" Robin's question was additionally punctuated when he swung his bo-staff at his diminutive foe.

"Ha!" Gizmo said, dodging underneath the swing and zapping Robin with his wrist-mounted stun beam. "Wilby is one of us. Those snot-munching Elementals can't break us apart. Brother Blood makes sure of that!"

"Maybe not," came a voice gratingly familiar to Gizmo, "BUT I CAN!"

Cyborg jumped in, with a brief salute to Robin, and dive tackled Gizmo, breaking off one of the mechanical legs as the two fell and throwing it across the room.

"By the way," called Robin at the rapidly leaving Gizmo, "I'll be sure to tell Scorcher what you said!"

The leg that Cyborg had ripped off sailed through the air straight towards Gauntlet, who was mostly recovered, and now fighting both Shimmer and Private Hive. Shimmer grabbed a fichus and transmuted the whole plant and all the dirt in the pot into acid, and dumped it on Gauntlet…

But Gauntlet made an energy shield, then turned the shield into a trough to collect the run-off, and hurled it all onto Private HIVE.

HIVE threw up his shield, which was instantly corroded away by Shimmer's acid.

"Dive on a grenade, Sergeant Candide! You just ruined my defensive capabilities!" he barked at Gauntlet…

Rob held up his hands to stop HIVE, (who was about to punch him)… "Wait, hey, stop, solider!"

"Whut?"

Rob thought for a moment, then pointed a finger at Shimmer. "She was the one who made the acid after all."

Selinda sweatdropped, then pointed at Gauntlet. "He's the one who dumped it on you!"

"Yeah, but I was only doing it in self-defense. Effective misdirection or not, _you _just got hit by friendly fire, Private."

"He's right!" said HIVE. Whirling around, he started chewing out Shimmer. "You are a disgrace to your uniform, Private Flinders. I ought to have you court-martialed!"

Mammoth, however, heard the conversation and disagreed. "Nobody is court-martialing my sister, Leonard!" he barked at Private HIVE after crashing through the battle lines, just to smack him in the face… Then Shimmer began protesting that Mammoth didn't need to stand up for her, and Private HIVE agreed that she was old enough to take responsibility for her actions (and therefore should be court-martialed). At this point Mammoth displayed a surprising amount of logic by pointing out that they were, in fact, an Academy, and not a military, to which Shimmer made the wry comment that you couldn't tell the difference with Brother Blood as the Drill Sergeant.. er.. Headmaster…

Rob watched the ensuing argument with a smirk on his face, even has he formed the Gauntlet energy shield into a massive baseball bat…

"Hey, guys," he said…

"Huh?" asked HIVE.

"What do you want?" Mammoth growled, turning around.

Shimmer's eyes just widened somewhat.

"Grand slam," Gauntlet said, then swung the bat at them, hitting all three students and sending them flying across the bank atrium…

The three crash landed near Jinx, who was dodging a series of psychic bursts from Psimon.

"Come on now, my dear Llarenes," Psimon chanted lecherously, "be a good _target_!"

Jinx stood still for a brief second… then Psimon shouted, "I DIDN'T SAY 'PSIMON SAYS!'"

A psychic burst the size of a double-wide trailer shot towards Jinx, but suddenly stopped a few feet from her face… coated in black energy. More seeped up from the ground and formed into Raven, who held up her hands. "A little old for children's games, aren't we, Dr. Jones," she said.

Psimon gave a psychotic giggle and pushed harder, only to be blasted in the chest by a Starbolt. This threw off his concentration, and Raven pushed her attack, blasting him towards the ceiling in a giant column of dark energy…

"That was most excellent team-work!" Starfire called to Raven and Jinx, before flying off after Psimon. Angel tried to stop the Tamaranian warrior, but Starfire just grabbed Angel and threw her at the ground.

Unfortunately, Angel crashed into Scalpel, who was dueling with the re-surfaced Kid Wykkid, glaive to shadow blade…

Fortunately, Beast Boy in the form of a tiger took up that fight even as Scalpel mentally switched his attack plan from _Shadowmaster_ to _slower Cauterize with wings… _Unfortunately, he maybe underestimated how much slower or how much the wings gave her an advantage, because he quickly found himself swiping at her with his glaive and hitting only air.

Angel flew up higher then dive-bombed him, and he jumped backwards, wall-kicking off of a column, and then kicking Angel in the face.

The girl recoiled, her helmet flying off as a grunt escaped her mouth. A gash opened in her chin from the sharp metal covering the vestigial third toe on Scalpel's heel. Angel growled in rage and flipped over, wiping the blood from her mouth, and angrily aware that any lower and that blasted alien would have punctured her throat.

Angel swooped up from another slice of Scalpel's glaive, then swooped down and kicked him in the head, driving the alien back. She landed, then shoulder rammed him, gaining the needed momentum with a gust of her razor wings. Scalpel slammed backwards into a column in the atrium, then swung his glaive forward in a horizontal motion, stepping forward as he did it. But Angel managed to get enough air under her wings to flip over top of the alien, and landed behind him.

She immediately stabbed her razor wings into Scalpel's shoulders, and the Blacktrinian let out a feral cry of pain, and grabbed at the wings when he saw them protruding through his front side. Blacktrinians were unusually resistant to bladed weapons, and Scalpel had quite a few stab scars already on his body, including one that had never quite healed…

Still, Angel's attack hurt. She jerked her wings out of him, splashing some blood on her leg and on the ground behind her, even as Scalpel staggered forward. He crouched and picked up his glaive, and turned to regard Angel… with a smirk.

Her eyes first widened in surprise, then narrowed in anger at the insolent Blacktrinian (not surprising, really, if she was arrogant enough to name herself Angel)…

Suddenly, an acrid smell and burning pain clued Angel in on the source of the alien's bemusement: her wings had caught on fire, as had the spot on her leg. And she instantly—albeit too late—remembered that Blacktrinian blood had similar properties to napalm.

Angel hissed and screamed, flapping to put her fires out and only making them spread, even as Scalpel got as far away from her as possible—he didn't want to be on the receiving end of her wrath…

Gizmo, recovered from his poor performance against Cyborg, was using his jetpack backpack to hover above the battlefield and fire lasers at the Titans. But when he saw Angel's wings burning, his leader instincts—what few he had—took over, and Gizmo darted towards her, dousing her wings with a fire-extinguishing chemical. "What the snot happened to you? Trying to play phoenix or something? Well if you burn to ashes I doubt you'll rise from them."

"That alien!" Angel snarled.

"Yeah, yeah, take your pick," Gizmo muttered. "Can you still fly?"

"NO! I may never fly again!"

Gizmo facepalmed. "Just pit-sniffing great…"

"Girls," a voice called. Fuming, Gizmo turned to see Jinx standing behind him, her hands raised. "I think your bad luck is just beginning."

"Crud."

A massive Hex blast lanced out from Jinx' wrist, catching Gizmo full on. Angel managed to dive out of the way, but Jinx ran after her, performed a jumping flip over her head, and delivered a round-house kick to Angel's now-uncovered face, knocking the winged girl out cold…

Unfortunately, as things go in this world, this reality with superheroes and bad luck charms, bad to worse is a way of life. And Jinx, unwittingly, was the catalyst for this. Gizmo's backpack, charged with concentrated bad luck energy, flew off towards the fray.

Beast Boy in Beast Within form and Kid Wykkid were clashing, claw to shadow blade, when Gizmo flew right through the fray. One of Kid Wykkid's blades slashed into Gizmo's backpack, throwing the wayward teen even further off course. Gizmo began spiraling and twisting out of control, and the Titans and Hive members scattered to dodge his wild flying.

If that wasn't bad enough (and trust me, it was no where NEAR bad enough), the bad luck energy build up in Gizmo's backpack crackled, sparking across the machine with a brilliant flash…

And in a burst of crackling energy, the backpack's matter compression unit spewed up a step ladder.

"Oh crud," Gizmo swore, even as the jet-pack's thrusters double in intensity, sending the tiny kid flying across the bank atrium in erratic patterns, losing the contents of his backpack as he went…

INSTIGATOR ducked underneath Gizmo as he swooped by, but when Gizmo did a loop-de-loop in mid air, his backpack discharged again, and Jimmy Hoffa's corpse fell on INSTIGATOR, disintegrating on impact…

"No way!" Gauntlet exclaimed from across the room. "That was lame—_Bruce Almighty_ already used that joke!"

Another green burst shot in his direction, however, and Gauntlet hit the floor as a coyp of Photoshop 7 flew of his head and shattered against a bust of the bank's founder behind him.

Cursing her bad luck, Jinx ran towards Gizmo to try and stop him somehow, hoping she could negate the spell with her own magic, an idea Raven seemed to have too.

But suddenly his backpack discharged again, and an OMAC flew out, and immediately attacked Raven, leaving Jinx to herself. She continued to chase Gizmo, when suddenly it fired again and she was hit in the head with a DVD case…

Rubbing her head with one hand, she picked the bloody thing up and examined it. "Final Fantasy X2? Pervert."

"Actually, it does have a good battle system," Robin observed. She glanced at him oddly. "What? I mean—" before Robin could finish his defense, a case of Red Bull turned projectile hit him in the chest and sent him flying across the room.

Savior, annoyed almost beyond measure, tried to use the Shimmer as a lasso and wrangle Gizmo before he could cause any more trouble, but had to dodge as various assorted weapons, a pie, and an Keyblade (?) pelted him or came close to it. The Intrinsic Field Remover he had destroyed Uberjason with flew straight at his head and he cut it in half with a Shimmer blade and landed on Gizmo's back, but before he could do anything, he was pelted in the chest by a double whammy: a copy of _Watchmen_ by Alan Moore… and an issue of _The New Frontiersman _magazine. He fell backwards off the flying midget, and landed on Private Hive…

"Get off of me!" Hive barked. "I ought to have you court-mffuffwd!" Hive's last word was distorted, and Savior had heard, rather than seen the reason.

Savior turned over and rolled off the Private and found that a comic book had been lodged in his mouth. He pulled it out and looked at the cover. "Actions Comics number one? With old what's his name holding up the car on the cover…"

Meanwhile, Libre ran forward to stop his out-of-control teammate when he a cardboard box erupted from the backpack and slammed into his gut, knocking the air out of the massive wrestler. He doubled over, and as the arcing energy subsided from the box, he saw that it was full of dirty magazines and a Fin Fang Foom action figure…

"_Pervertido,_"Libre muttered.

After flipping through the _New Frontiersman_, Noel threw the right-wing magazine aside, deciding it went a bit too far on some points even for him, and focused on Gizmo again. "That little midget is going to get someone impaled. How much worthless junk does he have in that backpack?"

As Noel said that, a bad fake of a Picasso, a model of the O RLY Owl, and a Blues Brothers fedora all flew out and hit various people in the room. "I ask again…" Noel started, not finishing his thought as Gizmo came towards him. Noel leaped into the air over him and came down behind, Shimmer lines already lashing out to constrain him.

But fate was cruel, and the pack discharge again twice in rapid succession, first expelling a Backstreet Boys CD that nearly lacerated Savior's face and several Shimmer strands—Noel had to twist in mid air to avoid it—and second a giant glowing square that Noel couldn't avoid.

Savior wrapped himself in a Shimmer cocoon, then his eyes widened when he saw, at the last second, the glowing square finish materializing—into a glass window pane. Protecting himself as best he could, Savior plowed through the glass, wincing as tiny shards made tiny cuts in his only metahuman talent…

He hit the ground hard and started trying to mentally block out the pain, like his nerve endings were set on fire.

Gizmo's backpack discharged again as Starfire and Raven converged on him… and out came Mammoth!

"How the snot did you get in there?" Gizmo demanded as he flew by.

"I have no idea!" Mammoth shouted back at him, before falling to the ground with a resounding THUD.

Then Billy Numerous popped out, and EVERYONE gasped.

"How the…"

"Not possible…"

"You're dead!"

Billy sat up and rubbed his head. "Well, tarnation, Gizmo. Don't you remember what we agreed to?"

Gizmo, too dizzy to care, just continued to scream.

"What did you agree to?" Mammoth asked.

"Well, we got together with several them there heads," Billy said, dividing into three, "and thought that maybe it would be good if he kept a spare **me **tucked away in that high-falutin' fancy-tech backpack of his just incase I ever bought the big'un. "

"You've cheated death, then!" Gauntlet said. "I know a guy named Adam—you two would get along great!"

"Knock the chatter!" Jinx commanded, "and shut down that midget before he gets himself killed."

The pack discharged one last time before sputtering out, and a pair of Jinx's striped stockings attached to a garter belt fell out, even as his jetpack ran out of power and sputtered to a stop. He crash landed and slid up next to Jinx, the stockings and belt floating down and landing on his head.

"Um…" he said. "I was going to give them to you 'cause you forgot them?" he tried, quite unconvincingly.

"On second thought," Jinx said, "kill him."

After the two forces stood around and stared at each other, thankful the chaos was over, they didn't notice one member moving until it was too late. Psimon, nearing the back of the Atrium near the vault, tripped over the Keyblade and fell into one of the busts, making a loud crash.

Everyone turned and gasped when they saw him sitting there, holding two handfuls of loot. "Ah, so I've been found out. Brother Blood was a fool to think he could dominate a mind such as mine! So with that, I bid you all a very fond adieu, and hope you all die horrible, painful deaths!"

Pink energy hummed, and Psimon disappeared into one of his dimensional vortexes.

"That snot munching traitor! He's worse than Jinx!" Gizmo shouted.

"Course of action?" asked INSTIGATOR.

"Nothing," Mammoth said. "This whole thing is a big failure. Let's go home and eat this pie," he said, picking up the pie Savior had dodged earlier. It had miraculously survived the battle. "It's a good thing you think to keep snacks in your backpack, Mikron."

"My name is Gizmo!" he shouted. "And I don't remember any kludge-eating snacks in my…"

Gizmo turned white even as Mammoth buried his face in the pie to eat it…

"MAMMOTH, YOU PIT SNIFFING MORON! NO!"

The big brute turned, his face covered in blueberry. "What?"

"THAT IS **_THE_** PIE! THAT THREE EYED WITCH! MOTHER MAY-EYE!"

"…" said Mammoth.

"Matriarch fornicating feces," Savior commented, noting that Starfire was nearby.

Suddenly, a sinister female laugh echoed throughout the bank, and every hostage on every floor heard the mad chortle. "Mother knows best, children. And she knows how NAUGHTY you all have been!"

"Not again!" Robin snarled.

"Dude… somebody do something!"

"Raven," ordered Robin, " can you think of anything?"

Raven nodded, then glanced over at Jinx. "Llarenes, help me prepare a counter spell…"

As she spoke the word, a blue beam erupted from the ruined pie, and another from Mammoth's mouth. The blue energy arced over the whole atrium, and a deep foreboding became tangible. "My sweet, sweet children," said Mother May-Eye… "You cannot resist the will of your mother!"

"You are not my mother," Savior replied tersely.

"Calm down, Savior," Raven admonished…

Then she turned back to Jinx. "I just need some help focusing. Now… _Azarath Metrion Zinthos… Tharacen, Metaronone**, Karasar, Metalsha, Danatru**_ **_REKAMD NEGEL_**!…" The two girls changed in unison…

Energies surrounded them, a black and pink column that shot up to contend with Mother May-Eye's spell, struggling in the air… then failing…

"NO!" Raven shouted. "YOU WILL **_STOP!_**"

The world went white and gray, and Raven's word seemed to echoed throughout the entire bank… Savior felt energies course through his body, 'saw' in his minds eye the three eyes of Mother May-Eye drag his girlfriend away, and reached out to rescue her….

And then, everything was completely and totally black.

* * *

Next chapter: Tara and Noel--THE REMATCH. 


	3. The Fruits Have Eyes

_Special thanks to co-author Ultra Sonic 007 for the INSTIGATOR fight scene._

**Maternal Instinct  
Chapter Three: The Fruits Have Eyes **_  
_

* * *

Noel's first thought when the lights went out was blasphemous enough to give the devil pause. The second and third were to worry about the safety of Raven and curse Mother Mae-Eye. The fourth was to thank every higher power whose existence hadn't been patently disproved that his mind was yet his own, that he wasn't being controlled… 

And so he did.

Savior stood up, hearing sounds he couldn't identify in the blackness. What had just happened? Mother Mae-Eye's powers had overwhelmed Raven and Jinx, and then… all had gone dark. Did that mean she has won? But if so, why was Savior still alive and conscious. Or maybe this was what death was like… Just blackness. In preparation for heaven or hell?

_Stop it Collins, _he told himself. _Get a grip. You're not dead… yet anyway._

Finally, he was sure he heard other people, and prepared two Shimmer lines. "Is anybody there?" he called out.

"I am here!" replied Starfire's voice in the darkness. "It is good to hear that you are unharmed, Noel."

"Shush, Star," Noel barked. "Secret identities."

"Oh! Sorry!"

Suddenly, the voice of Robin cut through the blackness some distance away. "Starfire."

"ROBIN! You are unharmed?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Can you make us some light."

Starfire perhaps nodded, and made an affirmative grunt before raising her hand and creating a green glow over the area immediately around the Titans. It was stifled, though, as though the darkness itself around them had mass.

Even so, when the light appeared, Savior found himself staring straight into the face of Mammoth, and let out a slight holler of surprise as he jumped back. Mammoth let out a similar cry and jumped back as well, though his was more of a growl…

"HOLD IT!" Robin shouted, drawing a birdarang.

"Wait, wait!" Mammoth said! "I wasn't trying to sneak up on you. I was just hoping not to be noticed… I'm too hungry to fight you right now."

Robin sighed, closed his birdarang, and replaced it on his belt. "Star, make the light brighter."

The green glow above her head enlarged, growing into what Savior thought would make Son Goku proud. They could see enough of the Atrium—if that is where they were still—to tell that it had been changed. It now looked like a meet freezer, though there was no meat hanging from the hooks.

"'Mother' is trying to keep us healthy," Robin grumbled.

"Robin," Starfire said, her eyes aglow, "I can see there's nobody else here. Everyone else must have been transported elsewhere."

"Or vaporized," Savior said sharply.

"No way," Mammoth said. "Heroes never get killed by the bucket load unless there is a massive universal reorganization about to happen."

Noel regarded Mammoth oddly, then his expression flashed with anger, and he randomly punched Mammoth in the face with a Shimmer-incased fist, knocking him a few feet through the air. Then Savior pounded on his chest and wrapped the Shimmer around his throat. "YOU STUPID APE! WHAT ON THIS GODFORSAKEN PLANET WERE YOU AND THAT MIDGET THINKING KEEPING THAT ACURSED PASTRY?"

"GAH!" Screamed Mammoth, unable to answer because of the pressure around his trachea, which wasn't as invulnerable as his chest. At least not enough to withstand the 4.7 tons of pressure the Shimmer was capable of applying.

"Let him go, Savior!" Robin shouted.

"Was it not Gizmo who kept the pie?" Star asked.

Savior continued to choke the massive foe. "Don't bother me with technicalities right now! Raven is missing or dead, most of the team is gone, and a thirty-story bank full of people is possessed by a witch who eats people for their souls… ALL THANKS TO GIZMO AND **_THIS BIG MORON_**."

Noel let the pressure on Mammoth's throat ease off for a minute, and the big guy was barely able to choke out, "He…**_kaff _**said that…**_kaff_**… we could give it to our enemies… **_kaff_**!"

Noel's expression changed to one of supreme annoyance and he turned to regard Tim. "Why on earth did you agree to go through with giving them the pie in the first place? Do you lose all sense when I turn my back?"

"What?" Mammoth asked with one last cough. "Weren't you there when she took over your Tower?"

"Oh, he was there alright," Robin said. "And he got so mad that she had controlled him he spent the rest of the night tearing apart simulated villains in our training room while Gauntlet and Beast Boy formulated that brilliant plan for disposing of the pie_ behind my back, SAVIOR_." Robin's stressed that last part, and Savior felt like saying something back, or punching him or something, but restrained himself. (In another world, perhaps Robin was 'in' on the giving of the pie to the Hive Five students. However, in this world events such as Gauntlet and his goofyness joining the Titans and the terrrible tragedies of the Final Night, the Last Wish, and the End of Metal all had pushed Robin to a level of seriousness that he may never have crossed otherwise.)

"You're the leader. You should have been leading."

"You're the co-leader, Savior," Robin pointed out. "Hold yourself to your own standard, and _then_ we'll talk."

Mammoth, rubbing his throat, walked over and interjected. "Hey, look, guys, I'm sure this is really entertaining, but I'm hungry. You think we can finish this after we find something to eat?"

Savior lashed out again, using the Shimmer to punch Mammoth again. "SHUT. UP. BARAN."

"Geez Louise, what is your deal?" Mammoth said, getting up and rubbing his head. "I just wanted some food this time."

Savior glared at him. "If you don't stay out of this, Flinders, I swear I'll lobotomize you."

"Naw, you wouldn't. You're a coward like all the other heroes—too afraid to kill so you hide behind a higher morality."

Savior turned from Robin again, sick of being interrupted. "In case you haven't noticed, Mammoth, MY MORALS ARE NOT PRISTINE."

But Mammoth just smirked and shook his big hairy head. "Bluffing."

"I. DO. NOT. BLUFF. One more word out of you and I'll reduce your intelligence to that of mayonnaise."

"No you won't," Robin interjected. "We need all the help we can get. For the time being Mae-Eye is a bigger threat than Mammoth."

Mammoth, however, had only actually heard one word of Savior's sentence. "Mayo.. yeah, that would be good. And a big, juicy tomato… and THREE patties…. With mustard…"

Starfire's eyes lit up slightly at the mention of mustard.

Savior turned to knock him down again, when his arm was restrained by Robin. "Enough. You _will _do as I say, Savior."

"We're co-leaders," Savior shot back. "You just said so yourself."

"No. I am rescinding that status for the remainder of this mission unless you do something that makes me change my mind. Consider yourself demoted."

"How dyou you expect to enforce that!?" Savior shot back.

Robin gave him a glare that could cow a demon and Savior remembered, for the first time in a while, who Robin's mentor was. Noel's eyes flashed with anger, but he did nothing.

Starfire put her hands together, a nervous habit. "Robin, are you certain…?"

As Robin walked off, he muttered towards Starfire, "Currently, I'm not really certain of anything. I'm beginning to think that Noel his a fledgling sociopath."

A deep frown stretched across Kory's face, and she shook her head. "This power struggle must end, Tim," she said to him out of Mammoth's earshot. "If you two keep fighting, it will affect the whole team. Remember the _rhekmaz_."

"We'll quit fighting when he learns to control his temper," Robin said. "I had to learn the hard way, but even _that_ never teaches Savior…"

**_BAM!_**

Robin and Starfire turned their heads back to see Noel on top of Mammoth, a Shimmer noose once again around his neck. "DROP IT, NOW!"

"What is going on this time?" Robin demanded.

Savior reached into his pocket and removed a tape recorder, and pressed rewind, then the play button.

Mammoth's voice said. _You know, I still owe you a wallopin' anyway for infiltrating our old base, so you had better lay off me or I'm going to pay it in full._

"Drop the grudge or I'll leave you immobile. My Shimmer _can_ and will affect the nervous system in VERY painful ways. Even one as underdeveloped as yours, Baran."

Something seemed to click, and Mammoth's eyes shot wide… "SHIMMER!"

"What?" Savior's face turned to confusion, why did Noel's power make him freak out?

"He means his sister!" Starfire realized aloud.

Mammoth jumped up, throwing his would-be tormentor off and rushing off into the darkness alone… "SELINDA!" He cried. "SEELIIINDAAA!"

And then, he was gone…

"Mammoth!" Robin shouted after him. But there was no answer… "Wonderful."

"What now, fearless?" Savior said tritely. "Your plans are working marvelously, I see."

"What is it with you?" Robin shot at him. "You're attitude has gotten worse and worse until you've become almost unbearable. You _tried_ to do a little better after you nearly went ballistic on Danny Phantom, but then you went right back to your old habits. What is your problem, Savior?"

"Well, gee," Noel said. "Let me think. I started out fine, but then, what? OH YEAH. Baran, Jinx, and that midget barged into the tower while you were out, beat me to within an inch of my life, threw me out a window, inadvertently discovering my weakness, and then… THEY TOLD THE WHOLE SUPERVILLAIN COMMUNITY ABOUT IT."

"It's not that," Robin said. "Even after that, the Savior I knew then wouldn't fly into such a psychotic rage over being harmlessly frozen that he would set a base underneath a populated city, underneath the friggin' EIFFEL TOWER, to detonate and kill a third of our rogues gallery!"

"How was I supposed to know that the Speed Force users were going to freeze them?"

"Boys…"

"You didn't have to KNOW," Robin retorted. "If you had just REMAINED CALM and not flown off the handle…"

"Boys."

"So a bunch of villains who froze us alive because they decided to escalate our fighting to the level of war and much like Hitler found they weren't as good as they thought. Cry me a river."

"**_BOYS_**! STOP THIS AT ONCE!" Starfire yelled, but to absolutely no avail.

"PEOPLE DIED BECAUSE YOU COULDN'T CONTROL YOUR TEMPER, 'SAVIOR'!" Robin shouted. "What if it is civilians next time. What if it is Sophie? Or Terra. What if you're anger gets Raven killed?"

Savior began to grind his teeth, thinking of how to come back… but no matter how he tried, Robin's words just replayed… What if? What if Raven had been knocked unconscious into a dark corner and Kid Flash hadn't been fast enough? What if?

"It won't happen," he said at last.

"You can't know that."

"We can't stand around dwelling on what ifs," Savior said. "Let's go fix this mess."

Robin nodded. "I'm going to follow Mammoth to make sure no white spiky haired angry people try to kill him."

Savior gave as close an approximation to Raven's trademark glare as he could. "I'm done with him. And Robin, be accurate. The base fallout aside, which was an accident due to our wires being crossed more then anything, I don't kill. I maim, I cripple, I make people WISH they were dead, but I don't kill."

"Then how are you any better than them?" Robin snapped.

"I'm not. I'm _worse._ And deep down, you're glad for it. Because if I didn't fulfill that necessity, you'd have to."

"You're delusional."

"Whatever."

Robin paused for a moment. "You two stay together. As far as I know, the horror movie anti-logic doesn't apply here, and you shouldn't face anything more threatening than giant gingerbread men. But we're separated enough as it is—I need you to stick together. Can you please promise me that much?"

"I will if you quit talking to me like I'm a child, Robin," replied Noel.

"Good, then. Find everyone you can. Fix their minds, get them out of any pies or ovens you find, and get back to the atrium. We'll meet here again in three hours for progress reports." With that, Robin removed a light from his belt, and ran off in the direction that Mammoth had.

"Starfire…" Savior started, staring at the beautiful girl and instantly wishing he hadn't been such a jerk to Robin… Starfire's sadness, when it was aroused, became everyone's sadness just because of the person Starfire was. "I'm sorry."

She nodded. "You have three hours to prove it," she said. "Let us go find our friends."

They picked a direction, and together ran off into the darkness…

**

* * *

**

The capabilities and limits of the arcane are constantly a source of confoundment to those who do not understand its intricacies. If magic can transmute an entire planet into a fiery mishmash of steel and magma, and turn the flesh of everyone on the planet into stone, how can anyone defeat a magician? What makes Tala the Sorceress less able to use magic than Trigon the Terrible?

Maybe it's not for us to know… Because whereas Savior and co. had been protected in the darkened Atrium of the bank, several others had survived, and yet still been transported elsewhere. Why had some been protected and some not? Could anyone really answer that question?

And where was Raven, the source of the resistance to begin with? Certainly not here.

Still dazed from the rush of magic through him, Gauntlet blinked. "Who got the plate number of that magic express…?"

"That's a horrible joke, even by YOUR standards," grumbled Jinx as she sat up, readjusting her hair. She looked around…and blanched. "Uh…boys…?"

Billy Numerous shook his head. "Man, I got a bunch of screws loose…can someone help me tighten them?"

"…sure," replied Gauntlet as he bonked Billy Numerous on the head (with a yellow Gauntlet screwdriver, natch).

The HIVE student growled. "WHY'D YA HIT ME YOU DARNED FOOL?"

"Boys…"

"You told me to," replied Gauntlet, looking a bit dumbfounded (then again, he never did like Billy's Southern accent. Though that banjo music was catchy).

Billy growled as he yelled, "THAT'S NOT WHUT I-"

"**BOYS!"**

The two turned towards Jinx. She pointed around them.

Then they finally got a good look around.

The bank was gone. The room they were in had become a look-alike to the candy house of Hansel & Gretel lore, save for an even more candy-oriented twist. The floors were made of graham crackers. The walls were covered with dark chocolate, and the ceiling was lined with green icing. The desks and tables were constructed of the finest peppermint in all the land. The windows were made of grape-flavored taffy. The partitions separating visitors from the bank tellers were made of watermelon-flavored, hardened sucrose (basically, what lollipops are made of). The vault was a giant blue jawbreaker, and the pillars were made of licorice. The lights were truffles, filled with chocolate fudge and-

"**_SHUT UP!"_** roared Gauntlet, hands fixed on his stomach. "You're making me hungry!"

Sorry.

Jinx frowned as she looked around. The others were gone. No one was there. _This isn't good…did our spell not work?_ That couldn't be it; the three of them were unaffected. But where were the others?

"Mmm…this stuff shore tastes yummy!"

Jinx sweatdropped as she saw Billy Numerous licked the lollipop partition. "Come on…don't eat this place. It WAS a bank, after all."

"Why should I a-listen to you, Judas Benedict?" retorted Billy. "B'sides, yer teambuddy over there's fillin' his belly with sweets n' lick-o-rish!"

Jinx glanced at Robert Candide, who was taking a bite out of the pillars. The blonde Titan innocently replied, "What?"

Rumbling.

Everyone paused as the door to the vault at the far end of the room rolled away (literally), causing minor tremors in the ground. A familiar cyborg stepped out, towering at over six feet. The hulking carapace of the HIVE student known as INSTIGATOR was now covered with brown fur. The singular section that revealed his face was shaped like a heart, and his face – usually set into a scowl or frown – was pulled into a smile.

Gauntlet hissed at the sight of the smile. "So…unnatural…getting…Mandy vibes…"

"What the tarnation are you babblin' about, you spiky-haired crawdad?" demanded Billy Numerous. Gauntlet merely stared, wondering why Billy described him as a crayfish.

INSTIGATOR cheerfully said, "Mother is wondering where you've been! Come on, dear brothers and dear sister! It's almost time for dinner!"

Billy blinked. Then he took another bite of the floor.

INSTIGATOR gasped. "You KNOW better than to eat sweets before dinner! Looks like it's up to big brother to set you youngsters straight!" He rolled up into a fuzzy ball and charged.

"**_PLEASE!_** No references to that Godforsaken 'reality' show!" yelled Gauntlet as the three dodged the fuzzy wrecking ball…of DOOM!

(Only a few people will get this reference, but I know one will absolutely love it. ;P )

**

* * *

**

"Mammoth!" shouted Robin, "Baran!" He had been working his way through the darkened maze for nearly ten minutes, coming across nobody. Was it possible that May-Eye's magic had gotten powerful enough to somehow expand the size of the bank?

It was too dark to really see anything ahead of, him, but his examination of the walls had shown a bunch of portraits in this hall. Perhaps once they had been of former bank presidents or important patrons, but now they were all of his team mates, and the HIVE students, but in clothing that would suit the witch's eccentric tastes. He even thought he'd seen one of the photos showing INSTIGATOR dressed up like a teddy bear.

Suddenly, he heard a loud crash up ahead, followed by sounds of fighting…

Robin ran forward, the sounds getting louder as he went, until he found the source. It was another large room, this one done up like a huge bedroom by May-Eye's twisted decorating sensibilities…

And high atop the massive bed, Mammoth was trading blows with Cyborg…

Cyborg, who was wearing what appeared to be an early 20th century schoolboy uniform, complete with a navy-esque cap atop his bald, half-metallic head.

"Good grief," Robin said.

Grabbing his bat grapple, Robin ran forward, his bo-staff in his other hand, and fired at the top of the bed spread. He underestimated its size, however, and caught it near the bottom. It reeled in and pulled him up, so he climbed up the sheet to the top, where Cyborg and Mammoth were still fighting.

"Get away from me, Stone!" Mammoth barked, smashing Cyborg across the room.

"But dear brother Baran," Cyborg said. "Mother only wishes the best for you! Why do you disobey her?"

"Stand down, Cyborg!" Robin ordered, jumping over Mammoth to kick him in the face. He drew a birdarang.

"Brother Timothy," Cyborg said. "Are you an accomplice to Brother Baran's misbehavior? You'll be punished too."

"SHUT UP!" Robin shouted. "Mammoth."

"What?"

Robin spoke quietly. "I need you to keep him distracted while I try and shut him down from behind. Just keep him still long enough for me to work."

"Sure thing, 'Timothy'," Baran mocked. Robin cursed the witch silently. Now Mammoth was privy to his first name. Not a lot, but… Hey, it was the age of the internet.

"My name is Robin. Now go!"

* * *

Jinx fired off a wave of pink energy at the ceiling, causing the hardened icing to crumble and fall. INSTIGATOR's grin (Good Lord, it was so CREEPY) didn't falter. "Now now! You know better than to try and give me sweets! But I won't disobey Mother, oh no!" He crossed his arms and barreled towards Jinx. 

The pink-haired sorceress performed a cartwheel, dodging to the side as INSTIGATOR stomped past her, leaving tremendous footprints in the floor. "Gauntlet, watch out!"

Robert's golden Gauntlet flashed yellow as it sprouted two arms, which wrapped around INSTIGATOR. "Huh. You sure aren't huggable."

INSTIGATOR wailed, "That's not true! Mother said I was ALWAYS huggable like a wittle teddy bear!"

"Sheesh! How come he's such a durn' chatterbox now? Stop the yappin'!" yelled Billy Numerous as he sprouted into multiple copies.

INSITIGATOR broke out of Gauntlet's hold, much to the boy's surprise (then again, he never encountered INSTIGATOR that much in battle; the cybernetic teen was practically a wrecking ball in terms of power—and roughly so in terms of shape). The 'Teddy Borg' charged.

Billy and his copies linked together, forming a wall in front of Gauntlet. INSTIGATOR blinked as he ran into the red wall of clones; Billy Numerous groaned as the wall stretched…but INSTIGATOR's footing broke first.

Like a slingshot, he was sent flying backwards. The cyborg crashed through a peppermint table before coming to a stop in a wall of chocolate. Shards of candy were sent flying.

Gauntlet moped. "Such good candy…gone to waste. And now there's Teddy Borg fur in it!"

Jinx blinked. "Teddy Borg?"

"I read it in the script," remarked Robert as he pulled out a thick paperback. The pink-haired Titan slapped at it. "Never mind your shenanigans! We can't rest now; the only way to get him to stop is if we knock him on the head!"

Billy snorted. "Since when were you made the leader, ya turncoat? I should oughta be team leader!"

Gauntlet briefly thought of Billy Numerous being team leader. Then he thought about Southern accents becoming mandatory. Then he thought of his room being filled with hay to become a pigsty. Then he grinned as he formed a banjo with his Gauntlet, strumming on the strings. "Soooooo-EEEEEE! Here pig pig pig pig pig, here pig!"

Jinx stared at Robert oddly, wondering what went on in her teammate's head. Something told her she didn't want to know.

"You…"

Everyone turned to INSTIGATOR, who was pulling himself out of the hole in the wall. His lips were trembling due to shock. "You…BROKE MOTHER'S FURNITURE! Now it's time for me to give you all a spanking in her stead!"

Billy groaned. "And I thought I would be gone from mah pappy's spankings when I came to the HIVE!" He noticed Llarenes and Robert staring at him oddly. "Whut? I was a rascal! My pappy don't take kindly to that!"

"Whatever. Head smashy!" yelled Gauntlet as he formed a hammer with his weapon and swung.

INSTIGATOR used his firm hands to grab the hammer. "No roughhousing without Mother's permission!" He then yanked Gauntlet towards him, grabbing the surprised Titan in his furry grip. "Fortunately for me, Mother gave ME permission!" He then threw Gauntlet into the air…and yet, the Titan still managed to call out, "Then your Mother's biased!" He then crashed into the taffy window, getting stuck in its gooey trappings.

Jinx lashed out with another wave of reality-altering energy. It crashed into the wall, causing it to hum and crackle before shattering into dozens of pieces. INSTIGATOR blinked as a wall of chocolate fell on him.

Man, now I'm getting hungry.

Jinx sighed. "I think that got him."

"YOU KNOW THAT'S A JINX, JINX!" yelled Gauntlet.

Sure enough, INSTIGATOR erupted from the chocolaty rubble, his hand wrapping around the sorceress. His grin was still pasted onto his face. "Naughty naughty! Big brother needs to punish his little sister!"

"I'm not your sister!"

Gauntlet blinked and rushed forward in a vain attempt to rescue Jinx from INSTIGATOR's hand, but to no avail…

Annoyed, Jinx blinked as she was put on his knee…and then she yelped as the thick, furry hands of INSTIGATOR slapped her rear. **_"OOOOOW!"_**

"Don't cry little sister! Mother doesn't like it when her children cry!" said INSTIGATOR, smiling all the while.

A shadow fell over the two.

"Yoohoo."

INSTIGATOR looked upward. A column of Billy clones was holding the gigantic jawbreaker vault door above their heads. They all grinned. "This'll only hurt for a second. Like a bee sting!" Then they dropped it.

INSTIGATOR, still grinning, blinked as the jawbreaker fell, not even realizing that Billy Numerous swiped Jinx from his grasp. "Oh fiddlesticks."

**_SMASH!_**

INSTIGATOR was all but flattened by the massive jawbreaker. The Billy clones disappeared as the real Billy let go of Jinx. "Now YOU owe me somethin'!"

Jinx sighed. "Actually, if you count all the times I saved your worthless butt back when I was still part of the HIVE, YOU – and Gizmo, and Mammoth, and a lot of people – owe me at least seven times."

Billy Numerous blinked. "Uh…well, you're still a turncoat!"

The jawbreaker was suddenly pushed aside from beneath. The massive cyborg stood up, looking at the duo in silence…but there was one difference.

He was no longer grinning.

Then he ripped off the teddy bear outfit.

Jinx grinned. "Welcome back INSTIGATOR."

Then there was yelling in the background.

"Don't mind me! I'll just take my time eating my way out!" Slurp, slurp. "Mmm…grapey…"

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get a Hershey bar…

_Thank you for letting me know where you were going, Ultra. Mother might worry about you._

No Chaltab! Not you too!

_Just kidding!_

_

* * *

_

"Do you think we shall find any of our friends in this place, Savior?"

"I don't know, Star." Savior began silently cursing Robin for sending Star with him. Of all the other Titans, Savior felt worst when he was a jerk towards someone if Starfire saw it. "It doesn't look like this part of the bank has been affected by the magic."

Noel's statement was based on the fact that the hall they were in was bare, with nothing resembling the motherly trappings of their foe.

"Your assessment may be in error," she said. Her alien eyes could pick up more than Noel's could, and she saw the room up ahead. "I believe I see a massive oven mitt in the room ahead of us."

"Perfect."

The two Titans arrived at the end of the hallway, and climbed out of the hallway—to find that it had somehow become a vent for an air conditioner… They came out in the new room atop a giant kitchen table, and sure enough, a giant oven mitt lay on the side next to a big fruit basket. The room smelled of freshly baked cookies.

"I am uncertain," Starfire said, "if I like this."

"I don't. I hate feeling small and insignificant." Savior jumped from the table and used the Shimmer to latch onto a light fixture in the middle of the room and swing across to the kitchen's counter. He landed next to a huge steak knife.

Starfire followed at a distance, flying up to the area around the light fixture to get a good view of the room. There were no electrical appliances at all—the corner housed an ice box, and the only oven in the room was a tiny (proportionally—it was actually the size of a small house) fire stove, probably powered by gas, near the middle of the room. A smokestack went up all the way to the ceiling.

"See anything up there, Starfire?" Savior asked.

"I do not!" she replied… Though, she continued to look.

Gradually, both Titans realized the unnatural darkness of the Atrium was descending on this room as well, and even the lit candles in the light fixture weren't able to conquer it.

"What is with this darkness?" Noel asked himself aloud. "It's like she doesn't want us to see beyond our faces." By this time Noel was on the floor, and Starfire was flying directly above him by about 300 feet. Both were feeling rather hopeless; the only way out of the room was the way they had come in, and, there was a deep foreboding about going back.

Starfire only shrugged to Savior's question and comment, which Noel of course couldn't see, but she wasn't really in the mood to care. "I simply wish to find our friends and…" Suddenly, Starfire felt her skirt rustle slightly, and then felt a hand close around her butt.

"NOEL!" she barked, immediately turning over and hurling a series of Starbolts directly downward…

"What?" he asked, confused, and looking up—only to see the green bursts of energy falling down at him.. "AAAHH!" Noel threw up a Shimmer shield at the last minute, and the bolts slammed into it. He felt the shield almost give before the flurry was over..

As it vanished, he saw a figure retreating, a floating hand following it towards the icebox. "Progeny?" he asked.

"WHY DID YOU PLACE YOUR HAND ON MY BUTT?" Starfire screamed, suddenly in his face, scaring Savior so bad his heart skipped a beat. When Starfire was really mad at you, things tended to get unpleasant really fast.

"I didn't!" Savior shouted back. "It was Progeny! The little punk tried to get me vaporized!"

"I see no Progeny here!" Starfire retorted.

"He ran behind the Icebox!" Savior said, using the Shimmer to wrench Star off of him and take off in pursuit. Star followed him, and they arrived near the icebox…

Progeny had seen better days. It was like May-Eye had tried to dress him in what might have counted as a young child's 'Sunday Best' in the early 1920s, but then it had been half torn off, removed, then hastily put back on. Tacky to say the least. "Ha, ha!" he started. Progeny slapped his knee and began laughing harder. "I totally got you. But you've betrayed Mother. You deserved it!"

"That witch is not my mother, punk." Noel barked at him, jumping forward in order to attack Progeny…

Suddenly, a black shadow formed around him—and turned into a Raven. When it dissipated, Raven stood there in a red and white checkered dress, her cheeks rouged and lips covered in bright red lipstick. And her hair… was in pigtails.

"RAVEN!" Savior shouted. He clenched his fists. "That witch… I swear I'm going to rip May-Eye's eyes out and scrambled her brain until she doesn't know left from right."

"Oh, dear brother," she said. "You will not harm Mother in such a way. You may have betrayed us, as has Sister Starfire. And you're not the only one who has been naughty."

Raven's grip on Progeny's head tightened. "Brother Progeny has been very naughty."

"Indeed he has!" Starfire stated emphatically, raising a Starbolt

_Good, _Noel thought. _At least she's not blaming me for it anymore. _He lashed out a Shimmer line, hoping to grab Progeny and Raven, but the shadows surrounded her again, and the two were gone…

"Great… Now what do we do?" Noel asked. "That witch has Raven and probably everyone but the four of us left in the atrium under her control... Kory?"

Starfire's head was moving at light speed, looking to see where Raven had gone to...

"I don't think she's still here, Star. Raven probably took Progeny straight to MME herself."

Suddenly, a portal opened up above Starfire's head, and four mechanical legs—the legs of Gizmo's backpack, snapped out and grabbed Starfire, then jerked her up into the portal. "Koriand'r!" Noel shouted, running towards the portal…

But it closed just as Star's feet passed through it, and Noel was alone…

"**_ARRGH!_**"

In a rage, Shimmer lines shot out, and began tearing apart the kitchen tiles, the chairs… everything he could find. He jerked out the two legs nearest him from under the table, and it fell forward, the basket of fruit and oven mitt falling off, the former with a resounding crash…

Noel did a double take, his rage vanishing, when he saw the fruit roll out, though… Were those… Was that what he thought it was?

Savior walked over a giant apple, and with slowly turned it around, careful not to bruise it… Sure enough.. The fruit had a face. A human face.

"Okay. I have now officially seen everything," he said. He reached out with this white-gloved hand, and gently tapped the face on the fruit… "Hello?"

The eyes suddenly snapped open, and the expression went from sleep to fright. "AAAHH! Ohnoohnopleasedon'tkillmeIDON'TWANNADIE!"

"Please, calm down, ma'am!" Savior said… At least, he assumed it was a ma'am from the voice. How do you figure out the gender of a giant fruit with a face?

"Ohnopleasedon't… please… just… go away!"

"Calm down!" Noel barked. "I'm not going to kill you… Who _are_ you?"

The crying fruit sobbed a few times, then looked and saw Savior's Titan communicator, and sighed… "You're a Titan. Oh, thank God! M…my name is Shelly. I was working here—at the bank.. is that still where we are?"

"Sort of," Noel said.

"Those awful Hive kids came in and said they were robbing the place, and tied up all us tellers and shoved us in the elevators… and then…" The woman—as it now seemed this giant apple was—sobbed again, and looked worried. "Why can't I move my legs and arms… what did they do to me?"

"They… they didn't do this to you…" Savior said. Though it was their fault the Pie ever got into the bank, they hadn't meant for this to happen. "The bank has been taken over by a dark entity—a witch called Mother May-Eye…"

"What, is this some kind of bad comic book joke or something?" Shelly asked. "Mother May-Eye?"

"I'm not joking, ma'am," Noel said with a sigh. He didn't get paid enough for this… "I couldn't say this stuff with a straight face if I was."

"What has happened to me?"

Noel gulped. He might as well come out and say it. "Shelly, I'm sorry, but… you've been turned into a giant apple."

Shelly must have fainted or something, because her face suddenly went limp, and she began breathing in a slow, steady rhythm. "I'd probably have reacted similarly if someone had said that to me," Savior said. A quick check let him know that indeed, all the fruits he had spilled were former humans… And he probably would have started laughing out loud at the inhumanity of it all if this hadn't indicated to him—rightly—that Mother May-Eye had intended to EAT this people.

Noel made a shimmer-net and scooped up all the fruits, then began to shove them into the vent that would lead back to the atrium…

Suddenly, as the last fruit went through, he heard something behind him, and looked back to see the room vanishing around him and transforming into what looked like a giant little kids playground sandbox… "What now?"

Suddenly, a whirlwind of dust and sand exploded into the center of the room, and Noel ran towards the center of it, already knowing what he would find—or more accurately, who he would find.

Cursing the fact he was right, Noel stared into the glowing yellow eyes of Terra, who was now in a ballet outfit, and knew she must have been sent by big three-eyes herself to take him down…

"You and me both know," Tara said, "how this is going to end. Mother has seen it in your mind, Brother Noel. You lost to me before, you'll lose to me again!"

"_NOT IN** MY **WORLD!_"

Noel pulled his jacket closed and activated the auto-zip sequence—extra protection incase she tried to impale him.

"You won't surrender, so you must be punished. Mother May-Eye? May I teach our dear rebellious brother a lesson?"

**_YES,YOU MAY. Hehehehehehehehe!_**

* * *

Back in the candy room, Billy and Gauntlet were feeling sick. 

"Ugh…" Billy said. "I feel like a rodeo clown with bull's horn up his butt."

Gauntlet groaned. "That is disgusting, but quite accurate."

Jinx, however, shook her head derisively. "You shouldn't have eaten all that candy. Too much sugar does this to you. Morons."

"Not that," said Gauntlet. "Weren't you paying attention during Noel's scene just now? Those fruits were people—which means the candy we ate earlier might also have been…"

Gauntlet threw up just thinking about it…

Jinx glanced over at INSTIGATOR, who, had asked to be called Ed, and grimaced. "What are we going to do with them?"

Ed shrugged his massive mechanical shoulders, and shook his head—which was really his whole body, too, hopelessly…

* * *

_Next chapter: Tara and Noel—the REMATCH… (For real, this time. Honest!)_


	4. Savior Versus Terra

Maternal Instinct Chapter Four

* * *

Noel stood his ground in the magic-made sandbox, the searing lights above making it look and feel like vast desert. He began to sweat even as Terra sent a wave of sand to knock him off his feet. But it didn't work. He had anchored himself to the ground with some strands of the Shimmer… For a moment, he considered pleading with Terra, with insisting she had a stronger mind than this, and that she could overcome May-Eye's control with will power. 

Then he remembered it was Terra he was talking about, and dismissed the notion quickly.

This wasn't the Terra who had defeated him. That Tara, the denizen of the universe Savior had visited under the alias of 'Oz'… She has been different. Unlike in this world, that Terra had betrayed the Titans and joined Slade, and had sacrificed herself to stop a volcano, and had become a statue…

But that had been reversed, and she'd… she had changed. She fought with martial arts and knives instead of rocks, and she had been the last person (within reason) that Noel had expected to show up. He was expecting to converse with the other world's Raven when he turned around. When he saw Tara, he had expected an easy fight—after all, they were on top of a sky scraper.

There, his expectations had defeated him.

Here it would be different. It _had_ to be different, because this time, Noel wasn't a creepy stalker named after Adrian Veidt. He was a Teen Titan. He was Savior. And he'd hang before he let _Tara Markov _defeat him.

Not. In. His. World.

"Let's get this over with," he said at last. "I need to get back to rescuing those fruits."

Terra, who looked rather absurd dressed as a ballerina, just shook her head, then raised her hand. "I think not!"

A gust of sand shot up from the ground in front of him, and a series of rocks flew through to stab him. Savior used the Shimmer to spring up over the volley and created a duo of Shimmer blades to lash out and cut...

As predicted, a duo of round stones flew up at him, and his blades cleanly cut them both in two, and for good measure, he had the strands explode into a starburst as thinly as he could get them, grinding the rocks to dust…

Noel shook his head. The technique she had just used was one that he himself had taught Terra. She should have known better to use it, especially so early in the fight…

Savior flung his hands out, and two Shimmer lines flew down and hit the ground behind Terra on either side, and then Noel used the rubber band effect to jerk himself forward, feet first towards Terra…

But the geokinetic girl rolled out of the way, and Noel missed. Using the Shimmer as a spring, he quickly changed directions and sprang towards Terra again… only to slam into a stone wall that she quickly erected.

He barely managed to stop facial injury with a last-second Shimmer shield, but it still hurt like _glomp. _"Glomp?" he asked aloud. "Did I just think _glomp_? I've been gone too long…"

Terra ran forward, pushing the stone barrier forward to crush Noel against a sand hill behind him, but Noel jumped over it and came down with a Shimmer hammer, smashing Terra right over the head with it—

Suddenly, a light energy field in the shape of a helmet flashed over Terra's head, and sent the Shimmer mallet flying backwards, throwing Noel off balance. He went with the flow, flipped over backwards and landed on his feet.

"What was that?"

"Mother isn't stupid, dear brother," Tara said. "She anticipated you would try and make me forget, and gave me suitable protection."

Noel swore. This fight just got a heck of a lot harder.

Terra rushed forward, a tornado of sand surrounding her.

Savior used the Shimmer to try and spring over her, but the tornado extended upward and sprayed him with tiny stinging grains of sand… Savior finally understood how Anakin Skywalker felt, as his jacket, mouth, nostrils, and hair were filled with the stuff.

And Terra didn't stop, rushing forward and punching Noel in the solar plexus with a rock-encased fist. "You've been a bad big brother, 'Savior'," Tara mocked. "Mother will see to it that you are severely punished."

"SHUT UP!" he barked, slamming his fist into the ground…

A sudden flash of realization flickered in Tara's eyes about a split second after he had done so, and she jumped to the right just as Noel's Shimmer lines burst from the sand below her. Her quick dodge was enough so that the Shimmer only scraped her leg.

"Nice try," she said. "But I'm not a fool."

Savior shook his head, and charged forward anyway. Lines lashed out and wrapped Terra up in a Shimmer cocoon, hoping he could cut off her supply of oxygen till she passed out and then figure out a way to undo the spell…

No dice, though. No sooner than he finished the cocoon, Tara's eyes glowed so brightly that they shined through the Shimmer wrappings

And then, a flash of reflected light caught Noel's eye—metal? What metal was in here? When the object in question finally moved so that the light wasn't reflecting off of it, Noel gasped. The steak knife from earlier was now being held in a massive hand of rock and sand…

The blade plunged downward at the tether between Noel and the cocoon around Terra; Savior tried to jerk it away, but the knife and it's giant hand wielder just showed too much dexterity—as if it was literally Tara's hand holding the blade…

Noel retracted the cocoon as quickly as possible, burying the Shimmer far enough inside himself that the blade would have to cut him to get to it… Then he allowed as much of it as he could to explode out of his palms when the blade had passed. The Shimmer struck the big knife just above the hilt and broke it in half, which Terra didn't seem to realize: she kept slashing at him with the now-bladeless handle.

…

Meanwhile, Tara fell to the ground and took a long, well-needed breath. Maybe Mother had been wrong about how hard this fight would be… Brother Noel was never a pushover… But she had moved the planet, hadn't she? Mother knew she could win.

So, she could. She just had to convince herself she could.

If only Savior hadn't broken the knife…

**

* * *

**

A blue-white sonic cannon beam lanced out and struck Mammoth in the chest, driving him back towards the foot of the big bed. Robin ran forward and threw a boomerang at his brainwashed peer, hoping to disable his weapon before someone got their skull shattered. It could happen if Cyborg hit them with just the right frequency…

Unfortunately, the million-dollar teen blasted Robin's thrown projectile out of the air and fired at him with the cannon. Tim changed directions and backflipped over a shot, only to be hit by a wider diffused burst that followed it immediately. His ears ached from the blow, and he found himself rolling across the big quilt that paved their battle ground… a weaving of a cute little duckling stared him in the face…

Suddenly a massive shadow fell over him and he rolled out of the way just as Cyborg's fist slammed into the quilt, puncturing the duck. Robin attached an ice disk to Cyborg's chest and got up and ran even as it exploded, partially encasing Cyborg in ice.

"Fight it Vic!" Robin shouted. "That witch isn't your mother. She shouldn't control you. Remember what happened before? She's going to try and bake you in a pie, and EAT you!"

"Mother knows best," Cyborg said. "If that is what is best for us, then I will gladly join the others and be eaten."

"You're psychotic!" Mammoth shouted, slamming his shoulder into Cyborg from behind, knocking the cybernetic teen forward. "Ain't no three eyed fat ugly cow on a magic power trip gonna digest me!"

"Brother Baran!" Cyborg blurted, sounding truly aghast. "You have _no right_ to insult our dear mother that way! You should be ashamed!"

"I'll show you ashamed!" Mammoth barked, blasting forward with a kick and pistoning back both fists to punch Cyborg in the face…

But Cyborg caught both fists, and Mammoth and Cyborg were caught up in a power struggle, each pressing forward, trying to overpower the other… Robin, seeing Cyborg's attention totally focused on Mammoth, quickly took advantage of the situation and ran behind Cyborg, opening up the back panel on his chassis…

He grabbed two wires in order to crosswire him…

_**KRAKOW!**_

Robin was suddenly rocketed back by Cyborg's massive arm, a solid blow across the chest that sent Robin flying halfway to the bed's enormous pillows.

But he had managed to hold on the wires, though they were now somehow wrapped tightly around his gloves… and he felt a little dizzy… Had Cyborg's blow spun him around that much without him realizing it?

Robin struggled to his feet against the quaking surface of the bed, but couldn't find his footing fast enough to stop Cyborg from running forward and tackling him. Robin rolled over some more, further entangling his hands in the wires he was supposed to be using to crosswire Cyborg…

Meanwhile, Cyborg deployed his sonic cannon and fired it at Robin from only a few feet away. Robin managed to avoid three shots, then did a massively difficult pushup on his entangled arms. He twirled around on the bed and swept Cyborg's legs out from under him, but Vic activated the jets that Viridian had helped him install in his back, and he didn't fall over.

"Say 'good night'," Cyborg told Robin, charging his sonic cannon up, aiming at Robin from point blank.

Robin gritted his teeth and waited to get blasted by the column of blue sound—not even he could hope to dodge at this close. It would take Kid Flash to pull that off…

Suddenly, he heard a crunch of metal and a sonic cannon discharge that managed not to hit him.

Mammoth! Robin looked up to see Baran and Cyborg struggling on the 'ground' a few feet away. Mammoth was apparently madder than Noel in a room full of people with a grudge against his mother.

Cyborg took a brutal thrashing before he finally got Mammoth off of him with a powerful uppercut that sent Baran flying off the bed entirely…

Robin took quick note that Cyborg was now also somewhat wrapped up in his own service cords---the same cords which Robin was holding… He couldn't crosswire Cyborg with them, but perhaps a good jolt would snap him out of it…

The only problem was, those cords were also wrapped tightly around Robin's hands, and if he plugged them together, they would light him up just as well. Then Cyborg turned, and in his giant panda suit, rushed forward in order to pummel Robin. When you have a half-ton metal death machine rushing at you, some alternatives suddenly become more pleasant. Quickly adjusting as much as he could to make sure there was no skin exposed to the wire (which was really only a token gesture—as tight as these wires were digging through his gloves, the green hand-sheaths wouldn't provide much of a defense), Robin plugged the two ends together, electricity surged through his body, and then he immediately thought: _That was stupid!_

Then he blacked out.

**

* * *

**

The desert seemed to stretch on for miles as Savior ran—even though it was really just big sand box in a big room in a rather large bank.. Right?

That was what it was, Noel told himself. If he had been teleported elsewhere, then those fruit-people were as good as dead….

_**BOOM!**_

Another explosion of sand appeared in front of him as he ran forward, the Shimmer reinforcing his tired legs.

He turned and looked back to see Terra, riding a big rock, flying towards him, her hands out ready to direct deadly earthen projectiles at him.

"No more running. At this rate, she'll just exhaust me," Noel whispered.

Two rocks from the sandbox hovered up as Terra's eyes glowed. The rocks were both about the size of a hope chest, enough to break some serious bones…

The two stones flew at Noel, but he didn't run. Lashing out a pair of the strongest Shimmer strands he could muster, Noel diverted the rocks away from himself by pushing his talent against them. But this was a position of weakness, because the Shimmer was far better at pulling than pushing… So Noel used a third strand to spring high into the air over Terra's head… He had intended to come down on her with a kick to the stomach or something—her head was still off limits thanks to May-Eye's foresight, but perhaps some other type of pain would snap her out of the control of that witch.

Then, something much unexpected happened. The rock's that the Shimmer was attached to shifted, closing around the Shimmer and then twisting into knots and grinding itself until the Shimmer was stuck inside the rock. Noel couldn't retract it!

A sadistic smirk stretched across Terra's face, and several more rocks flew up towards Noel as he started to fall…

Some more free Shimmer lines shot out to intercept them, but rather than taking advantage of his weakened position (and the fact that Terra's power was capable of moving a lot more mass than Noel's)… Terra did the same thing with the other rocks, 'grabbing' the Shimmer strands, and instead of pushing against Noel's weakness, she pulled the rocks out away from her, as far as she could…

Noel's wrists began to ache as they were being pulled six different directions by the rocks they were attached to—but he couldn't let go of them…

Tara's sadistic smirk didn't fade, and then she mocked the turn of events. "You're like the nucleus and the rocks are electrons. I wonder what will happen if I split this atom."

Noel grunted, and then tried to push the rocks forward, reversing the momentum to keep Terra off guard… But the geokinetic had other plans, and instead went with Savior's change in momentum, and crossed to of the rear rocks in the air, readjusting them until they had tangled Noel' up in a makeshift straightjacket of his own metahuman talent.

"Mother will be pleased," Terra said, hovering her rock over to stroke the five o'clock shadow on Noel's chin. "Brother Noel will be chastised, and from then on he shall be a good little boy."

"Sorry, Markov, but I'm not your brother." He quickly pulled all the spare Shimmer strands he could still manipulate into his body, then, switched the momentum of every rock he could force to give. The resulting transfer of motion sent him arcing over Terra's head, where he came down behind her in almost a Shimmer hammock, his feet facing towards her. She turned around, even as her eyes began flaring, and all the rocks shot straight outward again, locking Noel in position… "Hey Tara!" He said. "You know your atomic structure—now let me introduce you to _STRING THEORY_!"

Then, a mass of all the Shimmer he had left in his body shot out of his feet and smashed into Tara's stomach, knocking the wind out of her. Immediately all the rocks, including the one she was standing on, all dropped to the ground below and broke. The released Shimmer strands flew back into Noel, and he almost thought he heard the energy sigh in relief.

Unfortunately, it didn't have long to rest, because Noel immediately shot out a strand and inserted it into Terra's ear, hoping he could disable the control via her nervous system rather than with a bonk…

Suddenly, an image of the witch's three glowing yellow eyes flashed in his mind, and it was like he was forcibly blasted away from Terra like a concussion grenade.. He landed in a pile of sand, and more of it filled his jacket…

"Noel!" Terra shouted in a mock sing-songy voice, up and about again… Already.

But…

When he was in her mind… he had learned something… It had stuck.. the one thing Noël needed. He knew how he could break the control without being able to bonk her… Now he just had to find a match and some wood…

**

* * *

**

Robin's eyes opened and immediately ached from the influx of unwanted light. But they adjusted quickly, and focused enough so that he could see Cyborg standing above him, looking down at him…

_Crap! I'm dead! _Was Robin's first though. His second was to notice that Cyborg's panda outfit was completely gone, not just fried… Gone.

"Vic? Is that you?"

"Yeah," he said. Man, he sounded exhausted. That shock must have taken a toll on him physically, even as Tim knew it did himself. "Thanks. It may take a month to repair all the damage to my circuits, but I'd take that over being May-Eye's pawn any day. You alright? You got some nasty burns on your hands."

He brought up his hands and saw that the gloves had been removed, but there were lines burned in all around his hands where the wires had gotten really hot from the charge. If he hadn't been wearing the gloves, his hands would be mangled and unusable now. Robin smirked and shook his head. "Could be better, but could be a lot worse. What about Mammoth?"

Cyborg sweatdropped. "Mammoth? Mammoth was with you? Or… with me?"

"He was one of the few not affected by May-Eye's spell. He was fighting you when I got here… You blasted him off the bed."

"Bed?" Cyborg asked. Suddenly, he looked around, and, apparently, finally realized where they were. "Oh. That would explain why the ground is so springy."

Robin shook his head and attributed it to electron-frazzlement, then ran to the end of the bed and looked down…

Right into a big hairy face. "AAAAHHH!" Mammoth screamed..

"AAAAAHHHH!" Robin screamed in return.

After a moment, Mammoth, who had climbed up the bed spread to the top, pulled himself up to the top of the bed. "Ugh. You heroes have got to stop just popping up into my face like that. You're going to give me a heart attack."

"Your diet," Cyborg muttered so quietly that only Robin could hear, "is gonna do that."

"What was that?" Mammoth asked, glaring at Cyborg.

Vic's face stretched into a big goofy grin his hands clasped each other behind his back, and he sweatdropped again. "Nothing."

Mammoth gave him a 'whatever' face and then walked to the edge of the bed and looked around. "Selinda isn't here…"

"We'll find her," Robin said. "IF you don't fly off the handle and run into a black abyss again."

"Black abyss?" Cyborg asked. "Nobody told me about a black abyss?"

"It was in the atrium. Something in Raven's counter spell must have weakened May-Eye's hold on the building.. and saved some of us from falling under her sway."

"Didn't she use intoxicating pies to control us last time?" Cyborg asked.

"Spare me the details!" Mammoth barked. "I don't care how she's controlling my sister, I just want to find her and get out of this hell hole."

"So, he's on our side?" Vic asked.

"For now," Robin said with a nod. "Starfire and Savior also survived, but they headed in a different direction. We're supposed to meet them again in the Atrium in about 9 and a half hours. Until then, we need to find and rescue as many as we can. And remember that there were a bunch of civilians in the bank as well. We don't have any idea how many total people are here, so keep your eyes open."

Cyborg nodded. "Anything else?"

"Yeah. Don't say anything about Savior to Mammoth. They had an unpleasant confrontation earlier, so he might…"

"AHEM!" Mammoth barked, interrupting the two. "I'm going now. If you two love-birds are coming, hurry up!"

**

* * *

**

Greatly annoyed, Tara ran forward. Mother… Oooh, she was going to kill Brother Noel when she got her loving green hands on him. Tara had bruises in places she didn't know bruised, and her stomach was still feeling queasy from how hard 'Savior' had hit her in the abdomen earlier.

Nevertheless, she had to press on. For the love of her dear Mother May-Eye… She had to…

_**Patter, pitter, patter, pitter…**_

_What was that? _Tara thought. She could have sworn something white had just ran by… It must have been Noel... He was the only white thing in this sandbox. She followed the figure over the hill of sand, ready to pelt him with earthen projectiles as soon as she made contact…

But when she got over the hill…. _No! Nothing! But I know I saw him!_

Tara whirled around, looking in all directions… Was it a trap? Had he hoped she would walk into it and then… he would pop out of the sand? And then do what? Hit her on the head in the vain delusion that it would 'cure' her and make her see through Mother's allegedly false love?

No. Noel knew it wouldn't work—he'd already tried. And Mother had given her a magic helmet to protect her precious little head from injury….

Suddenly, Tara heard footsteps behind her and whirled around, pushing outward, eyes aglow, and a burst of sand and rock flew in the direction of the noise. But it hit nothing.

_Nothing again! I could have sworn…_

Why was she getting so upset over a couple of mistakes… Maybe she was beginning to wonder if… if he was right? Was there really something more to Mother than met the eye? But how could that be! After all the love Tara had been shown…

**_Patter, pitter, patter, pitter…_**

Tara turned just in time to see the tail end of a jacket and white spiky hair retreat over and behind a sand hill, and immediately went on the offensive. "I HAVE YOU NOW!" she shouted, jumping over the hill, standing literally on a whirlwind of sand and burying the figure, then propelling herself downward into the mound, the earth swirling around her. He wasn't going to escape this time!

She hit him—no… She hit… NOTHING!...

"HOW!... Tara blurted, then trailed off.

Because suddenly, a flaming blue something-or-other streaked by her, and she jumped away. Not fire! It wasn't possible! Noel couldn't know about that. He had to be guessing. Mother had said her spells would protect her against everything but one small weakness, and that she had specifically designed the arena to make it impossible to obtain that one thing. So… how?

Of course… the Shimmer had gone in her ear. Curses and drat!

Terra's eyes widened as the burning cloth—which she realized was Savior's headband—came at her again, streaking around as it was tossed about on white lines. How was it on fire? Didn't Noel make sure EVERYTHING he wore was flame proof?

Tara staggered backward and tripped, then rolled away. She quickly regained herself, and her eyes flared again as she tried to bury the flying torch in sand, and put out the fire. A torrential swirl of sand flew into the air and started to buff the flaming headband with the sand… The fire danced and flickered, and got smaller.

_It's working!_ She thought, and elation built up inside her…

Suddenly, a figure in white pants and a familiar white jacket ran by and dived behind another pile of sand—and this time she knew it had to be Noel for real, because she'd seen colors other than white!

She turned away from the flaming, now falling headband and leapt over the sand to see Noel with his head half buried in it, and came down with a powerful stomp kick… But Noel rolled away and sprang up and slugged her in the face. Terra staggered backwards, and then wiped a trickle of blood from her mouth...

And suddenly realized why it had obviously not been another decoy… Red hair. Dark blue eyes… Brown shirt…. He wasn't in his battle body!

Tara's eyes grew wide as saucers for a split second, then it was all over. The Shimmer suddenly appeared behind her, detached from Noel, and wrapped itself around her arms and legs, then plugged itself into her ear, as if it had been somehow pre-programmed to perform this action. Tara immediately found herself completely immobilized… and unable to access her powers.

"Now," Noel said, "About your so called mother." He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a specialized lighter/fluid-container and a piece of his normal-body shirt. Which he quickly set ablaze.

Then he dropped it on the skirt of Tara's ballerina suit, which also quickly caught on fire. Noel touched the Shimmer and it immediately went back into him, causing him to transform from white pants and a brown shirt to brown pants and a light blue shirt… He must have mixed and matched his normal and battle body clothing.

All the Shimmer except the line in Tara's ear which disabled her powers returned and by this time, she was too busy dealing with the fire to care…

"OUCH! OUCH! HOT!"

Anger flared in Tara's eyes, and suddenly, sparks appeared around her head as the helmet spell flickered out, and suddenly Tara seemed scared and confused… As if she was no longer under the spell. Which Noel assumed to be the case…

"I'm on fire!" Tara screamed. "Put it out! Put it out! NOW!"

Noel's eyes rolled, and he lashed a Shimmer strand out to the top of the other sand hill and grabbed something—a small fire extinguisher—and pulled it to him, then immediately sprayed Tara thoroughly.

"Tara," he said. "It's called 'stop, drop, and roll'. Remember it."

Tara glared at him. "What is up with you!"

"What?"

"You've had you jerkometer on high all day today—even for you!" Tara spat. "And then you just stand there while I'm on fire and expect me not to go off!"

"Fire takes three seconds to do damage. I gave you 2.5."

Tara stared at him, and said nothing for a minute, even as the sandbox disappeared around them and the giant kitchen returned. "So where exactly are we?"

"I'm not sure," Savior said. "But would you care to help me rescue some giant fruits that used to look like people?"

After a beat in which Tara mentally assessed whether or not Noel was being serious, she quietly said, "I-I'd be glad to… I guess."

**

* * *

**

Jinx and Gauntlet made the back and front respectively of a line progression that consisted of themselves, Billy, Ed, Billy, Billy, and Billy. A white line on the ground was all that remained of the ice cream that Jinx just _had_ to grab on their way out of the sweets room. Well, at least it would serve as a line back to the room if they needed to make a hasty retreat.

They traveled down a spiraling hallway that Gauntlet was sure couldn't have been in the bank's original floor plans. "You know," Gauntlet said, "I've been wondering. Jinx, you've been here in Jump City longer than I have, right?"

"Yeah," she said.

"Well, I have this pamphlet that shows a layout of Titans Tower, and something is confusing me. When the Boogeymen attacked the T-Tower, the Orb of Archetypal fell from the Evidence Room down to Raven's room. But these plans clearly show that Raven's room is several stories above the evidence room."

Jinx glanced back at him with disdain. "How do you know those are reliable? Where did you get them?"

"The Internet."

"Then I rest my case."

"But," said Gauntlet. "I got them from The Question's official website, and he is a detective on par with Batman. He wouldn't make mistakes like that."

Jinx sweatdropped. "Well, if I remember correctly, when me, Gizmo, and Mammoth first took over the tower when Slade hired us, Raven's room WAS near the top."

"So her room just got up and moved?" Gauntlet asked. "That explains it then…"

The utter sincerity in Robert's voice upon saying this made Jinx stop dead in her tracks and struggle not to facevault. He couldn't be serious… could he?

"What'cha stoppin' for?" Billy1 asked?

"Y'all are a'holding up the line, Llarenes!" Billy3 shouted from the back. "Move it!"

"Tarnation, Billy!" said Billy2 to Billy 3. "Didn't pappy ever teach us how to treat the lady-folk?"

"Shut'yer pie hole!" Billy3 retorted. "I'm gonna say whut I wanna being sayin', ya'hear?"

INSTIGATOR just blinked twice and would have shaken his massive head-body if he had room in the relatively narrow hallway. "This unit has a predilection for taciturnity," he said. "Please be quiet."

Billy4, the last Billy in line in front of Jinx, guffawed. "Ya know, Ed, it ain't nary a wonder you never made much'f'any friends at the Academy. Using all them fancy big words and such."

Ed ignored Billy4, gave an angry grunt, and continued walking.

"You know," Jinx said after a few minutes of nervous silence—nervous and silent mostly because it took a lot to anger INSTIAGTOR and not even the Hulk would like _him_ angry—"Titans Tower was destroyed completely or partially several times since it was first built. We added all that stuff to make it an 'H'… Then the Lord of the Night leveled it. And Whim. And Sorceress. Then Professor Chang vaporized most of Raven's room with his Zynothium laser. And that thing that happened when Murdercrow possessed me."

Jinx trailed off, as she did not like to talk about that incident. "What I'm saying is, it's no surprise if it's been redesigned since the initial version that those schematics were made from. Why do you even care?"

Gauntlet shrugged. "I guess it's because Chaltab feels the need to cover up Legend Maker's glaring plot holes." After a beat, Gauntlet added, "With something more than 'a wizard did it.'"

"Would it not," INSTIGATOR pointed out, "be easier to simply make no attempt at elucidating the matter. Most readers do not possess a copy of the schematic in question."

Suddenly, the dead end wall that they would have found at the end of the hall collapsed, and after a few more minutes, the Titans, Billies, and Ed emptied out of the hall into another fairly large room.

It still wasn't as big as the candy room, but it was sufficient. It was done in the décor of a rather large private library, with a fireplace at the far end and an massive oven in corner.

"Books!" Billy2 shouted. "What in tarnation does a witch need with this many books! She gonna learn her 'childr'n' how to read, rite, and do 'rithamtic r'sumthin'?"

"Or maybe," Jinx said with annoyance, "it is just for show like the candy room and serves no real function but to reinforce the illusion that everyone possessed is actually May-Eye's child."

"If you say so," Billy2 said.

"Hey guys!" Gauntlet shouted. "That oven is lit! I think there is something—or someone in it!"

Robert ran forward to examine it… And didn't notice behind him a spiked fence shoot up from the ground and surround Jinx, Ed, and the Billies… "What?" Jinx blurted. She tried to jump out over the fence, but a metal grate shot out of the wall and she slammed into it and fell back down. Before they could protest, the section of the floor they were standing on and trapped in shot upward and through a hole in the ceiling, leaving Gauntlet alone…

He still hadn't realized it when he used the gauntlet to create a giant crowbar and jerk the door to the big oven off. Inside, there was a pie and he was greeted by a sweltering heat that he reconfigured his gauntlet energy field to block out. He then formed it into a giant pair of oven mitts and dragged the pie out of the oven, hurling it into the floor of the library and hoping he wasn't too late…

"Guys help me dig this person…." He suddenly realized that everyone else had vanished. "…Out…" _Where did everybody go?_

Gauntlet shrugged off the disappearance, perturbed but certainly not helpless, and dug into the pie with claws made of his yellow energy, probing he pie. Finally he found what felt like a person, and wrapped his hand around it. He pulled out, blue berry splattering on his shield as he jerked from the pie… a single human arm.

"NO!" he shouted, and began to feel sick and depressed. "I was too late! I'm sorry, whoever you are!"

Gauntlet reached into the pie again, and pulled out a leg, then another leg. Then a bare foot. When THAT happened, he turned and hurled over the side of the pie. With his stomach now fully empty, Gauntlet turned back and began digging until he got everything he could out…

Everything but the head. He reached in and searched around, his shield now covered in blue-berry goo. Finally, he found hair, and pulled it up and out… "Progeny!" he gasped. "The guy who has my exact opposite luck with women! I shouldn't be crying! I should be happy!" Gauntlet tossed the head behind him, and felt guilty for being having such a selfish thought…

Then, something occurred to him.

"PROGENY!" he blurted.

Gauntlet whirred around to see the blue-berry covered human jigsaw puzzle finish pulling himself together, and gulped, then sweatdropped.

"Um… Hey, Arturo. Long time no see."

Progeny looked dazed for a second, then shook his head. "No, brother Robert. No pleasantries. You have disobeyed Mother. It is now my job to tattle on you."

"If you tell your mom, I'll tell my mom!"

"Mother is the mother to all her children, brother Robert," Arturo said. "You will be much better off once she has disciplined you."

Gauntlet gave and exasperated sigh. "And the fact that she was about to bake and eat your body parts… doesn't bother you at all?"

"…" said Aruturo… "Mother would never do that!"

Gauntlet nodded. "Right. I guess that explains why you were wrapped in a blueberry pie and shoved into a lit oven. That 'Mother' of ours really knows how to show affection."

Progeny snapped at this. "YOU THINK YOU CAN MOCK MOTHER WITH IMPUNITY?"

"I mock Savior and yet still live," he said, "Of course I think I can get away with mocking some stupid three-eyed green ugly witch. Who is ugly."

"YOU WILL SUFFER!" Progeny shouted, throwing his arms forward. "SUFFERRR!"

* * *

Meanwhile, Jinx, INSTIGATOR, and the Billy Numerouses arrived at their destination… And where aghast to find themselves in… a giant cradle? What was with this place? This was supposed to be a bank, not a nursery. 

"Great." Jinx said. "Just as long as we don't have to put up with teething…"

Suddenly, shadows appeared at the far end of the room, and Libre and Kid Wykkid rushed at them. Wearing diapers. Worse… They were being led by Scalpel, who was wearing some sort of goofy, overdone Victorian outfit.

"Tar my feathers," Billy3 complained, "This deal just keeps getting screwier and screwier."

"Shut up," Jinx ordered. "I know I'm a turncoat and you probably don't feel like letting me lead you any more, but that is Nigicalnack Hastionfarlock of Blacktrinia, and he is NOT to be trifled with… even if he _is _dressed ridiculously. So, shove your grudge against me where the sun don't shine for now. We have to take them out. Titans… I mean… HIVE"

After a beat, Jinx just bit the bullet and finished it.

"GO!"

And they charged.

* * *

Next Chapter: Return of the Gingerbread Army!  



	5. View From the Vault

_Credit where credit is due: Legend Maker helped a lot with Noel's answers to Terra's questions._

** Maternal Instinct  
Chapter Five: View from the Vault**

* * *

Tara and Noel had managed to make it back up to the vent, despite the fact that the table had collapsed, and Noel was pleased to find that all the fruit-people were still intact and all accounted for. 

Tara, on the other hand, was a little bit creeped out. Some of the fruits were conscious, and occasionally moaned in frustration or screamed in shock and fright when they discovered their sordid state. On the plus side, their hearts had been replaced with seeds, which thankfully could not beat, and therefore posed no danger of stopping of fright.

"I'm surprised," said Noel staring at the ruined ballerina outfit that Tara had on, "that you're not complaining about the fact you clothes are half burnt off." The remark was a bit of an overstatement, considering that it was really only the tu-tu portion that was burnt all the way off. The rest of it was severely singed, but intact. Though, Noel knew, it couldn't be comfortable.

"You know," Tara said looking down, "I hadn't really noticed what my clothing looked like after being covered in fire extinguisher foam, but now that you mention it this is rather itchy."

"If you hadn't panicked then I wouldn't have had to spray you."

"Who set me on fire in the first place?" Tara snapped at him.

"Quiet; you're going to scare the fruit people. The last thing I want is them all waking up and panicking. Besides, you're not hurt are you?"

"Well, no…"

"Then shut up."

"But you were the one who brought up my outfit!" Tara blurted… Suddenly, a Shimmer gag came out and covered her mouth for a second. She finally resigned, and shook her head. "Mll Mee Miet." Tara said.

"Thank you." The Shimmer gag came off.

Tara gave him a depressed sigh and they went back to rolling the fruits through the ventilation shaft/hallway until they all emptied out into the big room with the meat hooks. It was now a lot brighter in the room than it had been, and Tar and Noel could see that all the meat hooks in the room were indeed totally bare.

"I thought you said this is the Atrium," Tara said. "It looks more like the freezer."

"The whole building changed," Noel said. "Somehow this place, I guess because of Raven's spell, got designated a safe area. Well, relatively safe anyway."

"But how do you know it's the Atrium. It could be any room in the bank."

"No," Noel said. He pointed up above him to a whole in a big box that seemed to jut from the wall. "That is the president's office that you crashed through after hitting Mammoth's sister too hard."

"She's a criminal!" Tara shot back. "How do you hit a criminal too hard?"

"By hitting the wrong one," Noel said. "Honor among thieves, especially when those thieves are your little sister." He turned around and pointed towards a broken counter. "Also, that is the teller stand we smashed up and the still-open vault over there…"

"Okay," Tara said, "You're right, you're right. It's the Atrium. Geez…" She looked around, observing how small the two Titans seemed in the big room. "So… where do we go from here?"

**

* * *

**

Jinx ran forward, then flipped towards the charging Libre, blasting at him with a hex blast as she passed over his head. Libre dived forward and rolled, and the blast missed. Then he collided with a wall of Billies, who started pummeling him with the fists, knees and elbows, though it slowed Libre down very little.

Jinx looked back and saw that Kid Wykkid was right behind her, and at the last second threw herself down to avoid getting sliced by one of his shadow-blades. Going from the ground into a leg sweep, Jinx knocked the silent teen down, and then used a hex blast to send him flying away…

Unfortunately, when he hit the ground he melted into it through shadows and appeared behind Jinx, like a negative image of Raiden from Mortal Kombat. Jinx jumped away as he tried to cut her again, but made the mistake of jumping right into Scalpel.

The Blacktrinian looked positively goofy in the massive Victorian get up he was wearing, but Jinx had to stifle her laughter, because even in stupid clothing, she had no doubt that Scalpel was deadly. A blaze of metal-encased claws and feet flashed by as she backflipped three times to get away…

And as she flipped up, Jinx bounded off the top of the rolling INSTIGATOR. He had assumed his 'wrecking ball' form again, and rolled forward. The big cyborg smashed the Blacktrinian into the bottom of the massive crib, then spun around and deployed, raised his hands, and brought them down to smash Scalpel.

But Nigel was too fast to be hit twice by a low-level like INSTIGATOR, and rolled backwards out of the impression he had made in the cushion as Ed's fists came down, then jumped on top of them and ran up Ed's big arms to the top of Ed's helmet. The Blacktrinian removed his glaive from his back and stabbed down towards the H symbol on INSTIGATOR's forehead, but Ed charged his outer chassis at the last minute, and all the metal that was grafted into Scalpel's skin immediately turned against him, giving him a massive shock—not through the glaive, which possessed a non-conducting blade, but through Scalpel's metal-encased feet.

The alien and the cyborg continued to trade blows. If there remained any trace of the wounds in his shoulders, from Angel's earlier stabbing, he didn't show it at all. Still, Scalpel's reflexes were a bit slowed somewhat by the jolt to his nervous system. Or he was just still shaking it off.

INSTIGATOR decided that if anyone was worth it, Scalpel was, and quickly deployed his two shoulder-mounted laser canons and began blasting at the Blacktrinian, who dodged away, bounding off the bars of the big crib, like pillars in the huge room.

Unfortunately, Jinx wasn't faring so well. After bounding off of INSTIGATOR she had landed in the powerful grip of Libre, who had traded fighting Billy with Kid Wykkid, and was now trying to crush the pink-haired sorceress in his grip.

Jinx struggled to get free, but couldn't squeeze herself out of his grasp, and found herself struggling to breathe. She'd pass out if she didn't think of something quick!

Then, something Cyborg had once said clicked in her mind: _If you can't beat them… cheat._

He had been referring to his almost-unbelievable last-second victory against Brother Blood when he had been the leader of the Titans East, but Jinx figured if it ever was going to apply to her, this would be when…

Reaching out into the spectrum of magic that she knew how to manipulate, Jinx sent an invisible pulse of bad-luck energy down through Libre's feet and up one of the columns of the massive crib, her eyes glowing from the surge of power.

And the column promptly collapsed, landing on top of Libre's head, pinning the masked wrestler to the ground. Jinx broke free, and then assessed the situation, ready to fight Libre again if he managed to escape.

Billy and his duplicates had completely surrounded Kid Wykkid, but they were balled up on top of the shadow-manipulator, and he was slicing at them from inside, unable to miss because the Billies were everywhere.

But even he got weighed down. This didn't present much of a problem, though, because he phased under the pile of rednecks, coming out on the other side of them in a column of shadow and pouncing on top of them, stabbing one in the back and causing it to dissipate. The other Billies screamed, and rolled out of the dog pile. One shot forward and punched Kid Wykkid in the face, and the others started trying to gouge out his eyes…

"Tarnation!" Billy3 shouted. "You're worse of a turncoat than that their pink-headed nanny-goat!"

Billy21 agreed. "Ain't nobody in the whole Hive school who'd stab one'a me in the back. 'Cept maybe Sabotage, and nobody likes that sonofagun noways."

Billy21 then delivered a punch to Kid Wykkid's throat and Billy13 hit him in the gut. Several of the duplicates tossed the incapacitated Kid Wykkid across the room where Billy6 and Billy11 caught him and dropped him on top of Libre's head near where Jinx was standing.

"Respect my authoritai," Billy26 said with a smirk, placing his foot atop Kid Wykkid's head.

"Nice job," Jinx whispered to herself.

Suddenly, Libre threw Kid Wykkid off his head, and looked over at Scalpel, who was still dodging INSTIGATOR's lasers. It seemed Scalpel had managed to cut one of Ed's laser canons off, because only one was firing now, though it was firing in short busts instead of streams to make up for the output of the one Scalpel had cut off.

Libre wriggled forward and found he couldn't escape the weight of the column, and then started shouting, "Papa Sca'pa! Papa Sca'pa!"

"'Pada'?" Jinx parroted, looking down at the massive wrestler, and then over at the Blacktrinian. "What the hex is going on here?"

"DADA!" shouted Libre. Scalpel's head snapped in the direction of the Libre, and he immediately changed direction by pushing off one of the 'pillars' that made up the giant crib's cage. Scalpel blurred forward, his glaive cutting off the other laser on INSTIGATOR's shoulder before he turned and ran towards the shouting 'infants'…

"No you don't!" Jinx said, jumping in front of Scalpel and firing a series of hex blasts, hoping she'd be able to take him down before he could aid the fallen minions of Mother May-Eye…

But no such luck; Nigel just jumped over the attack and threw a small namesake scalpel that was attached to his belt at Jinx. Startled, she staggered back a bit while simultaneously causing it to explode with a reflexive bad luck spell. Nigel landed near Billy26 and punched him so hard he went airborne, then swung his glaive at a downward angle, cutting off Billy11's arm and driving Billy6 backwards away from Kid Wykkid and Libre.

"You will not harm the children!" Scalpel raged. Then he bent over and used his massive alien strength to pick up the toppled column and lift it off Libre. The masked wrestler got up, and waited till Scalpel threw the column off, then hugged him.

"_Papa Sca'pa_!"

"Libre," Scalpel said in a disturbingly paternal tone, "Your Mother has told you to be more careful."

"_Si, papa_."

Nigel sighed, then helped Kid Wykkid up. "Are you alright, dear son?"

Kid Wykkid nodded…

And everyone else facevaulted.

"SON?" Jinx blurted. "What the hex… How are… Oh… I think I might throw up…"

"WHOO-WHEE!" the Billies blurted.

"Them are some bad mental images there, alien. But if that's what tickles your fancy…" Billy4 started, "Can I really judge it?"

"But **_nothing_**! That is just G_ee_ROSS," Billy17 interrupted. "Let's beat the tar out of him for bein' such a pervert."

"I agree," Billy9 said. "And then we need find some buckshot and a good shotgun and…"

"ENOUGH!" Jinx shouted. "No buckshot, no hillbilly stuff. Period!"

"This unit," Started INSTIGATOR, who had joined the scene, "Wishes to have an explication of the paternal proclivity displayed."

"Yeah, what he said!" Billy2 blurted. "You ain't Libre and Kid Wykkid's daddy last I checked. Unless you been travelin' through time in one of them DEE-Loreans or somethin'."

"_Papa? Tu eres nuestro papa… Si_?" Libre asked.

"Of course I am," Scalpel said. "And if anyone tells you otherwise, they defame your dear mother and must be severely punished."

"But how?" Jinx asked. "May-Eye's pies make everyone her children. Not her…" she almost gagged on the word… _"husband…_"

"LIES!" shouted Scalpel, then began spewing a stream of Blacktrinian curses as he rushed at Jinx. But INSTIGATOR charged forward and bashed him out of the way, and Billy Numerous charged at Kid Wykkid…

"Leaving me with the big oaf again, eh boys?" Jinx muttered. "Whatever." She tried to shut all the disturbing implications of this new development out of her mind as she went back to work trying to figure out a way to bring the Scalpel and the brainwashed Hive students back to the side of sanity. Dropping a column on his head hadn't worked, so she'd have to go about it another way…

But how?

**

* * *

**

"Well," Noel said at length after he and Tara had spent some time recovering from the fight earlier… "We need to get moving."

"Where? Back to the big kitchen with no exit?"

"I don't know," Noel said he thought a moment. "If that way is a dead end, we should try and catch up with Robin and Mammoth… or go look for Starfire…"

"Starfire?"

Noel looked away, his face twisting into a mask of frustration and barely-held back rage. "I lost her…"

"What?"

"Raven is controlled by that witch, and she distracted me… Then Gizmo opened up some sort of portal and pulled Kory in. That was just before you attacked me."

Noel's tone was only a bit less annoyed than his face. "I was under her control, you know."

Savior shrugged and turned towards the direction that Mammoth ran off to, then began to walk… Then he stopped dead, and looked in the direction of the vault… He stared at it for a minute, then shrugged again, and continued walking…

Suddenly, he stopped again, and turned to the vault… "Tara…" he started..

"What? What is wrong with you?"

"You don't hear that?"

"Hear what?" Tara asked, now stating to think the whole scenario of being locked in a bank controlled by Mother May-Eye was starting to get to him.

"That scream? It sounded like…." His eyes shot wide again, Savior ran forward, this time towards the vault, his mask a face of serious determination…

Tara followed after him, confused and hoping that Noel wasn't hallucinating. Those months he'd been in Edge City had been bad enough on Raven and the team. Now he was going nuts again. Just great.

Savior burst into the vault, a Shimmer blade drawn and ready to strike, with Terra right behind him, her eyes aglow and the spare rocks in her pockets hovering above her ready to strike…

There were no screaming victims in the bank, only Raven, still wearing the false smile and saccharine clothing that came with Mother May-Eye's control. Raven and Savior stared each other down for seconds before either of them spoke, and Terra could only stand and watch, unsure of what to say or do, or if she should or _even _could say or do anything useful in a situation such as this.

Finally, Raven spoke. "I'm glad you've come here, dear," Raven said with a sneer. "I was beginning to think you no longer cared."

"Dear?" He asked, probing for what Raven's motive really was. "You mean Dear Brother?"

"Isn't he funny, Mother?" Raven asked, apparently in telepathic communiqué with the green witch.

"……" said Noel…

"Surrender, and you will be terminated. You despise Mother and her delicious pies… You go berserk when under her control. Your rage is poison to her."

"Not fast-acting enough for my tastes," Savior spat. "Know anybody who'd react with her like cyanide. How about strychnine?" As he said this, another Shimmer blade formed in his other hand. He would hate it, but he would use them on Raven; she'd prefer that to being a puppet. She'd been a puppet for the first sixteen years of her life.

Raven shook her head. "He still doesn't understand, Mother. Shall I merely terminate his life?"

"What! No attempts to feed us those mind-melting pies or zap us into a state of brainwash?" Terra blurted. "I'm a bit disappointed." Finally taking action, she hurled her flying rocks at Raven with her geokinesis. But the rocks suddenly turned black, encased in Raven's dark energy, and crumbled. So much for her projectiles.

Then, a loud grunt behind them cause Noel and Raven to turn around, just in time to see the vault slam shut and lock. Tara rushed to the door and began banging on it, and Noel looked back to Raven only to see her vanish in a dark shadow.

Noel let out a stream of profanities and then slumped against the safe door. After a bit, he looked over at Tara, whose fists were almost bloody by this point.

"Tara. Stop pounding your frail bony hands against three feet of solid metal. You're going to hurt yourself. Besides. That grunt sounded like Starfire. So at least we know she isn't dead. That's something to be a bit less unhappy about."

"But we have to get out of here! Even if they don't send someone after us, we will run out of oxygen eventually!"

"We'll run out faster if you don't calm down," Savior pointed out. "If they are expecting us to pass out or die from lack of oxygen, why don't we surprise them?"

"What? How?"

"We fake it. We lie on the ground and pretend to have passed out, and then surprise whoever comes to get us."

"Um, Noel, problem," Tara said. "How will we 'pretend' to be passed out if we RUN OUT OF OXYGEN FIRST!"

"Calm down."

"QUIT TELLING ME TO CALM DOWN! THIS IS NO TIME TO BE CALM!" Tara started hyperventilating…

"That's not helping our O2 supply you know," Noel said.

"Shut up..." Tara paused. "Why don't you just rip off the door?"

Noel gave a disgusted sigh and then wrapped Terra's mouth in a Shimmer gag, pressed the Shimmer into several pressure points Robin had taught him, and forced her to sit down. "Listen to me. The door is three feet thick and made of solid steel. The hinges are on the other side, and they are strong enough to withstand a tank shell. I _can't _rip it off. But, I _can _use the Shimmer to bore a hole in the vault door. We'll have enough air. IF," he emphasized, "you don't use it all up panicking."

"Fine.. I'll get us out with rocks…"

"Tara. Metal. Thick. REALLY thick. You'll do nothing but rattle us around like a can of peas. Now will you please calm down before I have to stick my Shimmer in your ear again?"

Tara shut up quickly. "Right…" she said.

"Stay calm. I'll drill us that hole now…"

Tara nodded, and Noel began forming the drill, which was fairly crude. After all, the Shimmer wasn't a Green Lantern ring. Nevertheless, Noel began drilling at the metal vault door, and judging by his progress, he would be done long before their oxygen supply ran out. (It was not a small vault by any means.)

"So," Noel said after Tara had begun to relax. "We have nothing else to do for a while." He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a mini chess set. "Want to play a game?"

"Um… sure…" Tara said after a while of staring at the proffered game board. "I call black."

**

* * *

**

"Crud!" Gizmo screamed, even as Starfire blasted away from the vault that Gizmo had just slammed her into… "I was hoping that would bash your brains out, dear rebellious crud-eating sister!"

"You will do no such thing!" Starfire shouted in retaliation, blasting a series of eyebeams that she hoped would take out the Gizmo's jetpack…

No dice. The beams arced wide and Gizmo fired several rounds from his new pop-gun, apparently a 'gift' from Mother May-Eye. The explosive magic-infused corks went flying wide, all except one which Star blasted with eyebeams long before it got near her.

"You think that's all Mother let's me play with?"

Gizmo's backpack, 'fixed' by May-Eye's magic, coughed up another weapon, this one an old school style paddle ball, except the ball was a glowing orb of plasma. "Play with this, snot-muncher!"

Mikron hurled the paddle ball up and then smashing it towards Starfire, who dodged away as it whizzed by her, and then flew to the left, firing at Gizmo. He used surprising accuracy and batted all the eyebeams away with the ball of plasma, then made like a tennis back-hand stroke and smashed the ball towards her again, and this time it somehow grew as it came.

Star flew straight up and the ball barely missed the tips of her toes; she could feel the heat through her boots. Gizmo thumbed a switch and then went into a flurry of strikes with the paddle ball weapon, too fast and numerous for Starfire to dodge them all, but too small to do any significant damage.

Nonetheless, they hurt like crazy, forcing Star to fly further away, dozens of tiny burns across her body. Ultimately, she looked and felt much worse than the damage really was, and Star was smart enough to know this. She fired at the approaching Gizmo again, using the same tactic of making too many strikes to dodge…

As the flurry of eyebeams rushed towards him, Gizmo used the paddle to shield his face… Which was just what Starfire was hoping he would do. She formed a heavy Starbolt in her right hand and hurled it at Gizmo. The attack arced through the atrium and struck the paddle, severing the cord and sending the plasma ball hurtling towards the ground where it burst open and exploded a few feet from that pile of oddly large fruit.

The paddle itself exploded, and the debris pelted Gizmo's face, angering him more than damaging him. One sliced his cheek open, however. None of them got into his eyes because goggles labeled 'safety' in big white letters were pulled over his face.

"Why you pit-sniffing…!" Gizmo shouted at Starfire. "You're a horrible sister!"

Gizmo pulled out a set of Frisbees and hurled each of them at the Tamaranian, one after the other. Starfire flew out of the way and fired back, then was suddenly struck in the back of the shoulder, and turned to see the blue Frisbee flying at her while the red one had dug several millimeters into her skin.

Starfire used a duo of eyebeams to blast the blue disk out of the air and then ripped the red one out with considerable pain. Blood rushed out, a reddish-purple streak lighter than human blood trickling down her back. Snarling in pain, Starfire turned and blasted at Gizmo with a Starbolt, then flew away, glancing over her shoulder just long enough to see that the green Frisbee was still chasing her, and that Gizmo had added a purple one to the fray after having dodged the Starbolt.

Starfire arced towards the ground, flying past the giant fruits, even as the two disks chased her through the air, weaving and matching her move for move. Then the purple one broke off and flew halfway across the room, and began hovering, even as the green one continued to follow her.

"You will stop this at once!" She shouted at Gizmo.

"Who's gonna make me?" Gizmo shot back, using his hands to direct the disks at his foe. Starfire tried blasting Gizmo, but found that he had erected some sort of energy shield, which made her job a lot more difficult. Suddenly, she realized that the green disk was coming at her from behind even as the purple one lanced toward her face…

Thinking quickly, Starfire flew up at the last minute before she hit the incoming purple Frisbee, causing them to collide at a right angle to each other, the green one slicing right through the purple one before Gizmo could change directions.

But it did change after the damage, and started pursuing Starfire all the faster.

Kory arced forward, twisting and looping in the air, but with his attention now focused on only one disk, Gizmo could follow her movements with ease. Starfire tried to fly at him to make him hit himself with the Frisbee, but it didn't work, and she really hadn't expected it to. Gizmo may have been an idiot, but he was still a genius.

Starfire winced when the cut in her back started to sting as she had to fly faster and faster to stay ahead of the Frisbee, but she had to take get the accursed thing off of her…

She turned and blasted a few times at Gizmo to throw him off, and then flew forward full throttle, blurring ahead of the disk. Then she rolled forward in the air, positioning herself upside down relative to the floor, and now facing the disk. Then she basted it with both eyebeams and it exploded several feet away from her, then immediately turned and let out a flurry of Starbolts and eyebeams on Gizmo's energy shield, which quickly fizzled out from the assault.

"You crud-muncher."

"Your insults are shallow, repetitive, and unoriginal, and you are testing my patience," Starfire said, now supremely enraged by the stalling. "Tell me the location of Savior this instant!"

"That," a new voice suddenly said, "is classified information, dear Sister…"

"RAVEN!" Starfire blurted.

"Sister," Raven repeated, her eyes glowing black.

"You are not my sister!" Starfire shouted, then after a beat added, "Though I'm sure you would make a far superior sibling to Blackfire. Were you not under May-Eye's control, of course."

"Enough of this," Raven said, growing annoyed with the Tamaranian's chit-chat, bad mouthing her dear mother like that! She raised her hands, and the meat hooks in the atrium ripped were suddenly torn from the ceiling by black energy, and flew down to Raven's level…

"**_AZARATH METRION ZINTHOS!"_**

**

* * *

**

Getting out of the big bedroom had required the oddest leap of logic since 1996.

Mammoth, Robin and Cyborg had found _American Gothic (_that painting of the old couple with the pitchfork standing in front of the farm house) hanging on the wall of the big bedroom…

But the faces had been changed so that the woman looked like a skinnier version of May-Eye and the man looked like… Scalpel. And instead of holding a pitchfork, he was holding up his glaive…

All three found the image vaguely disgusting.

But when Cyborg had shot at it to try and erase the perversion, his beam had gone right through it, the surface of the painting rippling like liquid… A scene very reminiscent of a certain ten-year-old video game staring an Italian plumber.

"This is stupid," Mammoth said. "We jump into a painting, not knowing where it leads, and we're still lost and I'm still hungry AND still we have no idea where my sister is!"

"Would you calm down a minute?" Cyborg shot back at him. "My sonic analyzer is picking up something from up ahead."

"What does it sound like?"

"Well," Cyborg said, "It's not a heartbeat. It sounds like a furnace and a bunch of footsteps…"

"Footsteps means people!" Mammoth said, ignoring the rules of grammar.

"It could also mean a trap," Robin said. "We'd best not rush in headlong. May-Eye might already know we are coming."

Near the end of the corridor, it became clear there was no welcoming committee. The exit to the hall was an air-conditioning vent, and it was totally unguarded. Despite Mammoth's urge to punch it off, Robin and Cyborg judiciously unscrewed it from the outside with some tool Cyborg had prepared for 'just such an occasion'… And the fact that he had prepared for being trapped behind a giant AC vent meant that either Vic had been watching too much Toy Story 2, or that he had been reading too many of Gauntlet's pamphlets.

Still, it was helpful, so Robin didn't bother asking.

The three slowly stepped out into the room and found themselves on a very high-up shelf, overlooking a massive kitchen. But this one wasn't like the old-fashioned kitchen where Noel and Tara had fought. It was much larger, and closer to the kind of kitchen you would see in the 1950s than in the 1850s.

And the entire floor was covered with Gingerbread soldiers. "Oh man, not these guys again," Cyborg complained upon seeing the hoards. "How many of those cookie people do we have to break before she gets the hint?"

Robin looked at two odd red figures near the oven, and suddenly gasped when he realized what they were.

In the anime movie _Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind_, there were massive creatures, humanoid in appearance, but with skin like a giant boiling soup. They were high-tech genetically engineered super beings used to fight in a war that nearly destroyed the earth hundreds of years in the past.

The Disney dub of the film called them giant warriors. The original Japanese version was more apt: God Warriors. The massive creatures had the ability to spit a particle energy stream from their mouths that could decimate an entire line of tanks or infantry, and they were nearly invulnerable to attack.

Robin didn't know if what he was seeing could spit lasers, but they certainly _looked_ like the god warriors from _Nausicaa. _There were two of them, massive lanky beasts that appeared to be made entirely of red licorice, surveying everything like petty officers above a legion of grunts.

Then, a light came on atop the oven, and the Licorice Warriors reached out and opened the door, and pulled out a massive metal tray. And two dozen Gingerbread Soldiers stood up, walked off the tray, even as a second pair of Licorice Warriors carried over another tray and inserted it into the oven in its place, and returned to wherever they had been before; it was out of Robin's sight due to a partition wall that divided the kitchen in half

"Holy crap. It's like their preparing to conquer the planet," was all Mammoth said when he saw the spectacle.

Suddenly, Cyborg's proximity alarm blipped, and the Titans glanced to their right along the shelf to see a group of about twenty Gingerbread soldiers charging at them.

"We've been spotted," Robin said. "Titans, go!"

Mammoth grunted his disapproval of being called a Titan, but attacked anyway, smashing through the first three Gingerbread soldiers with ease. Robin and Cyborg jumped over his head and smashed several more to tiny crumbs with bo-staff and buzz saw respectively. Soon, in this manner, all of the soldiers were destroyed.

Robin grabbed a pair of binoculars and looked down to see that nothing had changed down in the kitchen floor area. "I think we took them out fast enough. They don't seem to be alerted to our presence…"

"Guess again, boys…" said a familiar voice.

Robin, Cyborg and Mammoth looked up to see two figures resting atop the partition wall—it didn't go all the way up to the ceiling as Robin had originally thought…

"It seems, dear sister, that Mother's little operation has been discovered."

"Indeed it has, Big Sis Angela," the smaller 'sibling said to Possessed Angel. "I suppose we may have to make sure brothers Timothy, Victor, and Baran keep quiet. We wouldn't want to spoil the surprise for the rest of the family…"

"No we wouldn't… Selinda…"

Mammoth, who had been staring in horror up until this point, snapped, his face turning into a mask of rage. "SELINDA! I swear I'm going to tear that witch apart!"

_Get in line!_ The inner voices of both Savior and Scalpel screamed at him from across time and space…

Mammoth, in his rage, did not hear them at all…

**

* * *

**

Within the vault, unaware that it was closed purely by accident on Starfire's part, Noel and Tara continued to play chess. Gradually, something resembling a conversation developed between them.

"So…" Tara said leading in. "What's crawled up you butt and died today?"

Savior regarded her funny. "Nothing since Aberration tried. _Uggyyuugghhhh_, feel lucky you missed round three with that thing..."

"Feel lucky you didn't have to fight Ternion," Tara shot back. "You know what I mean. Even before I got Mother-i-fied, you've been acting like your desire to infuriate is on overdrive. And for you, that is saying a lot."

Savior sighed. "I thought I explained this during the Jackal thing."

"You told us a story. You didn't justify it in my mind."

Noel shook his head with a 'here we go again' look on his face. "Have you ever seen _Songs of the South_?"

"A movie? No."

"It's a Disney film. Released in the 40's. Pretty good quality. You'd think I'd be up for a DVD release sooner or later. Not only that, it's virtually disappeared. Know why?

Tara rolled her eyes. "I'm betting you're going to say because it's now politically incorrect."

"Bingo. It's considered racist." After moving a pawn, Noel continued. "And, hence Disney is trying to bury it. Seen any Speedy Gonzalez cartoons lately? How about some of Bugs Bunny's older work?"

"Points taken," said Terra, "But what does this have to do with you being such a prick?"

"I'm getting there. Tara, patience is a virtue."

"So is kindness to your fellow man."

Savior glared at her. "Some virtues come easier then others. Now. Ever studied language written five hundred years ago? Seen the fashion? The way the poor saps lived? It's all changed right?"

Terra nodded.

"Yet we don't try and deny how they lived just because it was cruder and simpler, do we?"

" Um... I guess not. I haven't put that much thought into that subject…"

Noel was finally to his point, Tara hoped. "So why are people going around and trying to censor and hide these older cartoons because they have attitudes that are no longer proper? Should we not see them, to learn where we came from, and how things have changed?"

"I guess…"

"But no. They're being banned. Because they're bad. Like Janet Jackson and her partially exposed for half a second breast. And Eminem, who isn't talented enough listened to by people old enough to understand it anyway. And Grand Theft Auto, the game that's corrupting kids, despite the fact IT'S MADE FOR ADULTS."

Tara arched an eyebrow… "I think I see where you're going with this…" Of course, she had been wrong about Noel's odd tangents before. "People are burying the truth too much?"

"Exactly—nobody is honest any more. Every day is filled with false friendliness, with blank smiles, with a slick gloss over everything so that everyone will be happy. Instead, they just settle for stabbing each other in the back. Or spreading their racism on the internet, or tormenting a co-worker. It's not RIGHT. It's UNNATURAL."

Tara shook her head. "People have stabbed each other in the back for thousands of years. Just look at Brutus… and Judas… and Benedict Arnold…"

"That doesn't make it healthy," Noel said. He watched as Tara moved a bishop and killed a straggling pawn.

"So Terra, I don't do that. This is me. All the good stuff, all the bad. You KNOW what you're getting with me. Terra, for all our disagreements and your dislikes, do you trust me to watch your back?"

"Of course. But there is a difference between concealing the truth and using truth as an excuse to take out your aggression. Remember Godsend?"

"Which part?"

"You know what I'm talking about, Savior."

"Terra, don't confuse the honesty of a zealot with the honesty of a cynic."

"I'm not confusing the two. I'm saying that even if you have good intentions for wearing your emotions on your sleeve... Well, you know what path good intentions pave."

"Nice try, but no. Your argument is flawed. I may wear a lot of what I feel on my sleeves, but I still possess more self control than most. Besides; the truth may hurt, but it doesn't kill."

Tara frowned. "Well, if I can't talk you into suppressing your urges to be 'honest', can I at least point out that if you refuse to mellow out, you're going to give yourself ulcers? And a heart attack. And hypertension."

Noel shook his head. "Good stock. Too young. Too in shape." The drill came out of the door, and Tara looked through to see that the hole was indeed all the way through it."

"Good job," she said.

"It's your move."

Tara looked back. "What?" Then she looked down at the chessboard and smirked. "Oh, right. Knight to E7."

Halfway through completing Terra's requested move, Noel's eyes widened slightly. "Argh! My queen!"

"You don't think I sit around and read _Seventeen_ all day, do you?" Tara asked.

Noel glanced at her. "You want me to be honest or do you want me to be 'nice'?"

"Funny… So. Now what?"

"We finish the game…."

"Wait," Tara said. "I have something else to ask you… Why are you such a jerk to Gauntlet?"

Noel looked up oddly at Tara, and then realized she was serious. "Okay…" he said. "I'll explain it in full detail… Next chapter."


	6. One of These Things

_Sorry the update took so long this time. Had a lot to do and lacked the motivation to write it. _

**

* * *

Maternal Instinct  
Chapter Six: One of These Things Is Unlike the Others  
**

Black-energy coated meat hooks fell from the ceiling of the Atrium as Raven uttered the familiar words of her spell, and flew at Starfire, spinning.

The Tamaranian dodged the first one, then another. One flew straight at her face and she sliced it in half with a pair of eyebeams, but was then hit in the stomach by another, and realized the center of the hook had made the impact, the inner curve wrapping around her abdomen and the sheer mass of the metal hook driving her backwards.

When she managed to get it off her, she realized it had left a long bruise, a purple stripe across her midriff.

"Surrender, Kory!" Shouted Raven. "Our dear mother wishes that you rejoin us…"

"She should know by now that neither my mind nor any of my nine stomachs shall ever again have anything to do with her.!"

Starfire dodged another pair of flying meat hooks and threw a couple of Starbolts at Raven, who dodged away and retaliated with a trio of projectiles—debris from the broken teller counter.

Starfire noticed that, amazingly, none of the giant fruits had been severely injured in the battle. Then she realized that the nearest fruit was in the possession of a face. A human face.

Her green eyes widened at the site, and she instinctively knew that this was very bad news. Those fruits… were they… PEOPLE?

Talk about disturbing! The only fruit people Starfire knew of were the Vordlaxians of Jingoth IV, and at least they had legs.

Another spear of dark energy came flying at Starfire, so she quickly changed directions and flew upwards, dodging the attacks and countering with her own.

Gizmo, his ego recovered from his failure to subdue Starfire without help, lanced towards her with his jetpack blazing, firing off a series of rounds from a massive purple cap gun. No bullets came out of the weapon, but a cloud of soot and flack exploded from the barrel, blurring Starfire's vision forcing her to take evasive action. Star made a conscious effort to fly away from the giant fruits, was drawn—some would say forced—towards what used to be the 'box' that contained the bank president's office.

There was still a hole in it from Terra's humiliating setback earlier, and Starfire figured the best way to keep the fruits safe was to make sure the fight happened somewhere else. She flew through the hole Tara's body had made and suddenly found herself inside a massive room full of all kinds of make up. Rouge, eye liner, vanishing crème… Everything that Mother May-Eye could use in the vain hope that it would make her less hideous was there.

Gizmo charged in, blasting with his cap gun at random, spraying debris all over the make up room. And Raven followed soon after, her eyes 'glowing' black, and her face twisted into a snarl.

"Sister Kory, you will learn to behave, even if it kills you!"

Giant makeup compacts coated in black energy flew at Starfire, and the Tamaranian princess dodged away, blasting the last one and filling the room with the disgusting smell of charred cosmetics.

Gizmo flew at her, but before he could fire, she blasted the cap gun out of his hands with eyebeams and punched him in the chest, then delivered another blow to his face to knock him back without causing any permanent damage. She turned back to Raven and darkness consumed her.

But Star's eyes flared and she burst out of the soul self and slammed into the wall of the makeup set, bouncing off a mirror. A small piece of it broke off and fell next to her right leg, and she picked it up, eyeing it as if it were some sort of rare prize that she had finally won.

Then a glowing white ball of energy whizzed by her head and slammed into the mirror, bouncing off almost as fast as it had come, as though it hadn't lost any kinetic energy in the impact. Starfire flew up and blasted towards the nearest light, and flinched as the ball flew over her wounded shoulder, hit the wall in front of her, and bounced back, almost pelting her in the face.

Star turned around and saw three more fly at her, and one hit her in the upper thigh right below where her skirt ended, sending shockwaves of pain through her body. She gritted her teeth and fired back at the one who had thrown the projectiles—Gizmo—and found herself suddenly in a much larger room…

She had come out of some sort of massive bag and was now in a large bathroom, hovering high above a table with the cosmetics bag on it. Raven burst from the darkness of the purse, a couple of green sticks of lipstick flying at her, the handles covered in black. Apparently Raven was trying to blind Starfire by getting the lipstick itself in her eyes.

Starfire blasted both projectiles out of the air with Starbolts and then blasted towards Raven, smashing the Azarathian in the face with her fist, and sending her flying backwards. Raven summoned her soul-self in an attempt to right herself, but still crashed through the legs of the table on which rested the cosmetics bag, spilling its contents all over the bathroom.

With her fist still clenched tightly, Star examined her leg to find a circular burn mark similar to the ones she'd received from Gizmo's paddle ball, but deeper. It also hurt a lot more. The bouncy balls were flying all over the room now, and Gizmo kept hurling more of them into the fray, making it increasingly dangerous for Starfire to be out in the open.

She dodged several more as Gizmo threw them and then hurled herself towards the ground where Raven was, and charged at her. Better the klorbag you know, at least in this instance.

Raven reacted with surprise and began hurling pieces of the broken table at Kory with her telekinesis. One of them managed to hit Starfire in head on, but the Tamaranian ploughed through it with no effort and kicked Raven in the stomach, sending her back.

Angered, Raven grabbed a nearby piece of metal—where it had come from she had no idea—and used her telekinesis to swing it at Starfire like a bat, knocking the girl aside into the wall. Starfire got up, her forearms now bruised from blocking, her forehead marred by a trickle of blood down it.

Raven smiled. With her and brother Mikron tag teaming Sister Kory like this, it would be easy to end her pitiful resistance. And if Mother permitted, her pitiful _existence _as well.

**

* * *

**

"You've been a bad boy, Brother Robert," a pie filling-covered Progeny taunted drawing closer to Gauntlet. "You shall pay for your misbehavior."

"You guys are so one-track, you know," Gauntlet said. "Six chapters and you all have _not _said _anything_ original. This whole creepy mind-control shtick is getting old."

"You're in denial!" Progeny retorted, throwing out his hands. They slammed into the Gauntlet shield hard… and had absolutely no effect.

"Weak," said Gauntlet.

"Mother…" Progeny gasped. "Some help, please?"

"Please, Arturo. Utshay upway. You're not fooling anyone. Your powers totally suck against mine."

Progeny gasped. "Pig Latin? Are ouyay akingmay unfay ofway emay ustjay ecausebay I'm an atinolay?"

Rob sighed deeply. "No. Do you even know where igpay atinlay comes from?"

Progeny blinked. "Peru, I thought."

Rob groaned. "Do you even hear yourself? Think for a minute, Nicanor. If you are Latin, then I _can't_ be your brother because _I _am not Latin. Hence, Mother May-Eye is an evil mind controlling witch, and I just gave you incontrovertible proof. Osay erethay."

Arturo seemed to consider this for a moment, and then said… "I must be adopted and Mother never told me."

Gauntlet facepalmed. "I've had enough of this. Mind telling me how to get out of this mess while you still have May-Eye's voice in your head."

"You'll never get out!" Progeny retorted. "Never."

"Think about it, moron." Gauntlet said. "Even if we are trapped in here, you think once the big boys outside like Bats and Supes won't hesitate to come in here and knock this place down if they have to?"

"They can't! It's impossible for anyone to get in or out."

"And why'zat?"

"Because," Progeny started, almost giddy with glee. "Mother has placed a massive impenetrable field of magic around the whole building! The only way to get in is to shatter the **Indestructible Gem of the Ultimate Seal Spell**, which is INSIDE on the top floor and guarded by…"

Progeny suddenly came to a stop and his face turned horribly guilty.

After a moment of silence, Gauntlet asked, "What?"

"I… I shouldn't have said that. Everything I just said was a lie."

Gauntlet smirked. "Oh, really?"

"Yes really! And now I'll never tell you anything again! My mouth is shut from now on!"

"Good," Gauntlet said, his smile growing bigger. "Then I have no more use for you."

Forming a mallet of yellow energy, he smashed Arturo over the head, knocking the body-dissembler so silly his head fell off.

After a few minutes, his cranium floated back up and reattached itself to his shoulders, and then Progeny stared down at himself in horror. "Ay! What is this garbage I'm wearing? And why am I with _you!"_

"What's wrong with me?" Gauntlet asked innocently, arching an eyebrow.

"You're a Titan. And a loser virgin," Progeny said condescendingly.

Wrong thing to say, as Gauntlet wasn't in a particularly good mood. He had been completely ignored for the whole previous chapter. Chaltab wasn't supposed to do that sort of thing!

Anyway, this bad mood that Rob was in resulted in Progeny, after that smart-aleck remark, being thrown across the library room into a book case, the contents of the shelf crashing all over him.

Thankfully, it was only a bunch of books. Rather hefty hard covers that were who knows how old.

"Ouch."

"Sorry…. Well, not really. I'm just trying to make amends so you don't waste more time and effort trying to attack me."

"No, that really was my fault," Arturo said, standing up on the other side of the toppled shelf. "I should have paid more attention to your mood and not said that. Speaking of which, shouldn't we have fought some massive battle, the underlying theme of which would have been me using your inability to successfully score a chick to undermine your confidence and get through the Gauntlet?"

"What?" Rob said. "And do what everyone is expecting? No way. Besides, Chaltab said he needed to move the story along if he wants to fit everything in here in ten chapters."

"What? We only get ten? _Crisis Point_ is a total rip off and it gets a lot more than ten!"

"Shush. We have to get moving." Gauntlet began walking to the door, still wary of that the HIVE student was trailing closely behind. He kept his shield activate on low intensity just in case Progeny tried to stab him in the back.

Suddenly, though, as he walked by, he heard… whimpering.

"Is that you?" he asked, throwing a glance over his shoulder.

Progeny shook his head, his once-immaculate flowing hair stiff with pie-goop. "No." He looked to his left and right, and then back to his left, where he saw the pile of books lying open.

One of the books had fallen open to a page with a drawing of a young child on it. This wasn't all that weird. It was weird, however, that the child was sniffling and crying. "M… mommy. Where are you?"

"Holy…"

"Oh my…"

Another book nearby called out, "Justin! Justin baby is that you! I can't see you! I can't move! HELP ME! Somebody please!"

"Candide…" started Progeny… "You can't seriously expect to carry all these book-people around. It will take five shopping carts…"

Gauntlet shook his head. "There are more books in here than there were people in the building when May-Eye took over." Rob bent down and picked one up. "Look," he said as he thumbed through it. "This is just a book with a bunch of blank pages. Not a person."

And so, the next several minutes were spent by Rob and Arturo going through the books. It quickly became clear that there was a pattern. The books with plain color spines were normal books or books without words. The books with golden stripes across them were people reshaped as books by May-Eye.

"Okay, we've gathered them together. Now what?" Gauntlet asked.

"You could stuff them into that magic back pocket of yours," Arturo observed.

"I can't do that. I keep my pamphlets in there." Gauntlet reached in and pulled out a pamphlet about the importance of carrying pamphlets, and handed it to Progeny.

Arturo gave him a completely incredulous stare. "Do you take nothing seriously?"

"I get asked that a lot," Gauntlet admitted regretfully. "Look, how about I just carry them in some sort of energy-bag with my gauntlet. IF you walk in front of me."

"If it will get us out of here faster, whatever. I'm not particularly inclined to help a bunch of whiny reading material anyway."

"That's why I'm the one with the Titan Com," Gauntlet muttered as the two started off into the hallway, Gauntlet dragging what looked like a glowing yellow fishnet full of books behind him.

Unknowingly, the two were being pursued the whole way in the shadows… by a little green mouse.

**

* * *

**

Meanwhile… Noel killed another of Tara's pawns with one of his own. "So," Terra said absently. "What is it with you and Gauntlet?"

Noel sighed deeply. "Tara, would you like to play chess with dice?"

"What? We're not missing any pieces, are we?" Tara scanned the board, saw there was nothing out of placed, and moved a knight.

"Could you place chess with dice? Would be annoying, wouldn't it? Because it's not the same? It's doable but it doesn't really fit?"

"Yes, I agree, whatever your point is. Just make your move!"

"We are the chess pieces in this analogy. Gauntlet's the die. He just never fit in with us in my opinion." Savior shook his head, and then began counting off each of the Titans on his fingers. "I mean, look at us Tara. Tim? Orphan. Gar? Orphan. Vic? Orphan. Kory? Well that's up in the air but she was sold into slavery, which I suspect included sexual abuse, and then experimented on. You should have heard what Robin told about her when she first arrived, before she shook it off and her natural side re-emerged." Then he looked at Tara pointedly. "You? You still can't remember anything beyond your life on the run. Raven and I, our mothers are gone and our fathers are pure evil. And Nigel's an outcast from his race and branded by a monster by ours. We've all seen our share of blood, sweat, and tears. That unites us to try and make a better world for ourselves and each other."

Terra eyed him warily.

"Now...where does ROB come from? Father, mother, still alive, unusual but loving. Grandmother and siblings as well. In a town so overloaded with superheroes and happenings it's virtually impossible to pull off a mass devastation plot there. And Pangloss, who gave Rob his power like a lottery prize."

For dramatic emphasis, Noel held up a chess piece and a die he had aquired from somewhere.

"ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER."

Tara frowned. "When has he ever let us down when it really matters, though? Since when is there a law that says a hero has to suffer some great personal tragedy? Look at Superman. Sure, his home planet blew up, but from what I've read, he doesn't even remember the place."

"According to Robin, Superman's raising also taught him how to deal with personal hardship and tragedy. While Rob hasn't let us down, YET, he acts so absurd so often I cannot stop thinking that if something comes from us at the wrong angle he'll fall down like a house of cards and drag us all down with him."

"But just a minute ago you said it was because he had a different past. Now you say it's because you're afraid he'll let us down in some nebulous future... (Hey! I didn't know I knew that word!) ... Which is it? You can't have it both ways."

"I never said there had to be more then one reason that I 'hate' Rob. And I don't 'hate' him. If I honestly hated him, I'd have gotten him off the team long ago or left myself." Savior shook is head. "He aggravates me, intensely. Two of the reasons why, I just listed."

"Ever thought that you just resent him because he's had it better than any of us? Envy, perhaps?" asked Terra.

"Yes. That too. If I could kill him to get his life...well, not sure if I could resist it."

The look on Tara's face was halfway between disbelieving and extremely disturbed.

Savior elaborated, "Innocence is a precious thing. It can be a weakness too...but not a weakness in and of itself. And Rob, being Rob, has no idea what he has."

Tara continued to stare blankly. "I think I want out of this vault now."

Savior ignored her. "Of course, if I had it...chances are I wouldn't be me. You can't have your cake and eat it too." He seemed to notice her, finally, and his tone became a bit more consolatory. "Relax Tara. I told you I don't hide this stuff. It's not like I'm going to start playing Alfred Kinsey and asking you about your sexual predicilations."

An arched eyebrow was the only indication Terra had even heard that last part. "If you envy him so much, why not just steal the next PDEM he fools Pangloss out of and wish for his life?"

Noel frowned. "I already said: because then I wouldn't be me. Bad things happen when you can't stand your own self Terra. Look at what happened to one of your alternates: Tarting herself up for Slade, getting so out of control she killed herself with her own powers...wasn't exactly a comforting glimpse at certain possibilities, was it?"

Tara shuddered.

"Likewise myself as Christmas," Noel added.

"Yeah. Right..."

"But the you I know, you turned out pretty good." Noel reached down and captured one of her bishops with one of his own.

"What about the one that beat you up, in the universe with Norse-boy? Was she a psycho too?" As she asked it, Tara killed Noel's bishop with her knight.

"Not that I could see. Just hunting for her place in life. If she caught me off guard, she certainly seemed to be heading in the right direction."

"True. But that me also trained with Slade and betrayed the Titans. She could turn out worse for it all rather than better."

"There's always some aspect left to chance. Something that still gets under my skin, despite my best attempts," Noel admitted regretfully. "Besides, Slade's an utter genius. I remember what you were like in your starting days. That version of you didn't have a chance." He grew pensive for a moment. "Slade's manipulated both of us in some aspects. You know how good he is at it." Savior glanced down at the chess board and frowned.

"Tara, Just so you know, I had nothing to do with you and those photoshopped photos on the internet."

"What photos? GAR! It must have been... Oh, wait, photoshopped... HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THEM? What kind of sites do you visit?... Did they look good?" Tara rattled off her questions in a somewhat more hysterical manner, but otherwise very similar to Starfire's first 'conversation' with her when they had first met.

"The supposed nude ones; I know everything; All kinds; No, your neck didn't quite make it. Amateur work," Noel answered in order. "Though if you and Gar are taking photos, be very careful. Those paparazzi can be devious."

"If GAR is taking ANY photos of me without my knowledge, he's going to wake up with dirt in his mouth the morning after I find out."

"Gar is not like that; he'd ask permission. He may be a goof but Marie and Rita raised him well."

Suddenly, Tara arched an eyebrow. "Why did you suddenly change the subject to photos?"

Noel smirked. "It was to segue into the fact that you won't even catch me doing anything unscrupulous behind your back."

."…Sure…"

After a while of silent chess-maneuvering between the two, Tara decided to speak again. "So.. if read your report about the other earth right, the one with Norse-boy, we know of at least four instances of the accident that gave you your powers being survived: You, Jack, Christmas, and Emmanuel. I've been thinking… maybe the chemicals aren't as dangerous as they thought or something. You think the results could be reproduced?"

Noel shook his head. "Maybe it's just something in my genes. Extraordinarily ugly deaths is what should have happened."

" In Jack's genes too? It seems unlikely that perhaps the only two people in the world capable of surviving the accident happened to be the ones hit by it."

"Well, didn't you see that story the other day about a new nervous-system energy manipulator debuting up in Raleigh?" Noel asked, a glint of something in his voice.

Tara's face grew thoughtful, then she shook her head. "Um, well, no, I can't say I did."

Savior smirked. "Exactly."

**

* * *

**

Jinx jumped away as Libre and Kid Wykkid charged forward and crashed into each other, bouncing off and hitting the ground. Meanwhile, INSTIGATOR and Billy had both teamed up and were still unable to subdue Scalpel, who clearly deserved a higher rank than what he had.

"Dearest May-Eye will feast on your flesh and drink your blood like orange juice!" Scalpel snarled, hurling himself at Ed. A wall of Billies sprang up to reflect them backwards, but then it became deadly serious when Scalpel stabbed one of them with his glaive, killing it on the spot.

The rest of the Billies snarled and dog-piled on Scalpel beating the alien into submission… "You stupid monster!" Billy2 shouted.

"You done gone and killed one a' me!" Billy7 finished.

"Yer' gonna pay! Time for you to squeal like a little _Bloketrinityanne_ piggy!"

Billies 7 and 8 jabbed their fingers hard into a supposed pressure point on Scalpel's neck, causing him to unleash an agonized roar, standing up against the weight of the pile of hillbillies and throwing them through the air…

Only to get blasted in the chest by one of INSTIGATOR's force cannon beams, blasting him through the pillars of the giant crib and down into the room below…

"This unit is uncertain of the Blacktrinian's demise," Ed said. "I would suggest that you designate a group of yourselves to watch for his recrudescence."

"Yeah, yeah," Billy4 muttered. "Fancy high-fallutin' robot-talk."

"Coulda just said '_watch for 'im ta' git a second wind_' a heckuva lot faster," agreed Billy9.

**

* * *

**

"_Preparae para derrota!" _Shouted Libre as he smashed his massive fists towards Jinx.

"Carlos!" she shouted. "You have to come out of this!"

A familiar, eerie sound echoed behind her, and she dropped to the ground just as Kid Wykkid slashed a dark shadow blade over top of her. Jinx dropped onto her hands quickly and kicked up into Wykkid's stomach, sending the shadow manipulator staggering backwards. "Donovan, stop! That witch has got you all messed up in the head!"

Kid Wykkid responded by charging forward, shadow blades 'glowing' with dark energy. Jinx backflipped and landed on Libre's head, then bounced off and landed behind them. "Ooh…" she thought aloud. "What was that spell Raven did...?"

Kid Wykkid melted into shadows, and Jinx turned behind her and delivered a powerful kick… but hit nothing. Then she heard Wykkid behind her and rolled forward and at an angle from her kick, the shadow blade this time coming down vertically and cutting off a small lock of her hair.

"That does it!" she shouted. "I think it was something like this…" she jumped forward, kicking towards Kid Wykkid, but missing as he phased into the ground through the shadows, and landed atop Libre's massive form. "REKAMD NEGEL!" she shouted, bathing the upper body of Carlos in magic energy.

(The best comparison she could make between it and a Hex Blast was the difference between strawberry and chocolate ice-cream, and even then it wasn't really the best analogy…)

Eh, it didn't matter. She bounded off Libre and spun, landing on her feet.

When she turned, the masked wrestler was dazed… but now, every part of his body that had been hit by Jinx's spell was covered in his normal costume instead of the baby get up, which hadn't included any leg-coverings.

"_Ay! Caramba!"_ shouted Libre. "_Ahora… Soy el luchador enmascarado de DOOM… SIN PANTALONES!"_

"You'll have to get over it," Jinx shouted, watching as an angry Kid Wykkid bounded over top of Libre, stabbing down at Jinx like that guy from _Assassin's Creed. _But Jinx just stepped out of the way, and repeated her spell: "REKAMD NEGEL!"

The beam washed over Kid Wykkid's entire body, and his baby costume vanished, replaced by his normal supervillain costume.

After a moment of disorientation, Kid Wykkid looked up and Jinx, nodded, and thanked her. "…….."

"You're welcome," Jinx replied.

**

* * *

**

Another massive blow sent Starfire slamming hard into the ground, but the Tamaranian bounced up again and fired a Starbolt at Raven. The dark teen batted them aside casually and continued after Star, followed at a distance by Gizmo, who found his schemes to win Starfire back over for Mother constantly foiled by the so-called princess of Tamaran.

Starfire, Raven observed, was a mess. She was bleeding from several cuts and covered in bruises. She would give up, she would collapse, Raven knew. Any minute now, her body would have taken all it could take, and then Koriand'r would be hers.

"Sister dear," Raven said, hovering forward, Starfire crouched on the ground, and breathing heavily. "You are almost completely exhausted. You shan't last much longer. Just give up."

"You will find I have plenty of the 'fight' and 'flight' left in me!" Starfire shouted, blasting forward and hurling a Starbolt at Raven. It caught the Azarathian in the chest and sent her backwards, crashing into Gizmo…

But Raven quickly recovered and hurled several loose objects at the flying Starfire. Several were blasted out of the sky, but one managed to slam into her and send the princess falling towards the ground where she landed with a thud and bounced, then rolled over and landed on her back.

Still, she staggered to her feet, clutching her arm at the bicep with the opposite hand.

Raven tried to probe her mind for weakness, but found only strength. How was it possible? How could such a broken and battered body, it's heart and mind rebelling against Mother, have such a strong mind left in it?

Eyebeams answered the probe, and Raven had to block them with a shield of black energy.

Perhaps… there was something to Starfire's crazy assertions—that Mother did not know best? Couldn't be!

But what gave her such resolution if she wasn't utterly convinced!

_A fool believes his way is right, _Raven heard in her mind… "Of course," she said… "Of… course…"

"Having second thoughts?" Starfire, barked, a trickle of blood sliding from the corner of her mouth as she spoke. "About your 'dear mother'?"

"N…never!" Raven shouted, blasting a wave of dark energy that sent the wounded alien flying backwards.

They had fought their way into the bedroom where Cyborg, Mammoth, and Robin had struggled earlier, and then broken down the wall into a 'small' kitchen—relative to the size of the rest of the rooms—with only a refrigerator and a microwave, and a 'small' table, which was really quite large.

Starfire crashed into this leg, and bounced off, landing on the ground face down, her body unable to take any more…

Raven hovered over, and grabbed the princess by her collar with her telekinesis, and lifted her up. Her face was spattered with blood and bruised, and both her eyes were half closed from exhaustion…

"What is it that keeps you going, Starfire?" Raven asked. "What, dear sister, has kept you from succumbing, from admitting you are wrong and rejoining our dear mother?"

Starfire said nothing in response, but went off on a tangent. "You know," she said, "the actions of our 'friend' the Puppet King have been very beneficial…"

"What?"

"When he switched us, I was in your body. You were in mine, friend Raven. And we learned things about each other. I learned something very important about you."

Raven's eyes widened… "What are you blabbering about?"

"I learned…" Starfire started weakly… Suddenly, her eyes shot open and glowed brightly. "HOW TO KEEP **YOU **OUT OF MY MIND!"

Starfire's movement was faster than Raven's eye could track, and much too close for her to block in time. Kory slammed her fist into Raven's face, and sent the Azarathian flying backwards into a breadbox in the corner… The Azarathian slammed through the wire mesh on the front and hit the back wall with a resounding thud.

"The game is set and matched," Starfire said.

"Not so fast!" Gizmo shouted, charging forward in an energized battle suit, and throwing a punch at Starfire.

She grabbed his wrist and bent it into a painful wrist-lock. "Give up, Mikron," she barked.

"Not a chance, snot eater!" Gizmo retorted, punching Starfire in the face with his free hand and then delivering several follow up blows until both of them were in the air, Starfire hovering with her own flight powers and Gizmo flying with the suit's thrusters.

"It was foolish of you to use a solar-powered suit against me," Starfire said. Then she charged forward, ramming into Gizmo and sending him flying backwards until the both slammed into the water unit on the refrigerator..

"HOW!" Gizmo blurted. "It isn't possible! You are nearly dead! How can you still be going on!"

Starfire responded by slamming him against the water button, and a torrent of clear liquid rushed out and covered the Tamaranian, washing away the blood on her face…

And more than half of her bruises along with it…. The make up from the compact! But some of the cuts were clearly real…

"You…!" Gizmo was speechless. That Tamaranian had tricked them! Starfire opened the fist she had clenched so tightly, and out fell a small piece of the compact mirror that she had broken earlier, the tip of it barely stained with her purplish blood… The wounds were self inflicted to be safe, then…!

"This doesn't mean anything!" Gizmo shouted, pressing a button on his belt. A massive force wave blasted Starfire away from the refrigerator into the open air of the room…

And Gizmo flew out, now piloting a massive metallic robot of death!

"Say your prayers, pit-sniffer! Mother is done with you!"

Suddenly, the entire giant robot was encased in black energy as a telekinetic jerk sheered it off of Gizmo with little effort…

And Raven looked to the side to see Raven, her face a bit bruised and blood trickling from her nose, but finally out of that horrid attire that May-Eye had conjured for her. "Gizmo," said Raven "I'm getting really sick of you immature insults. REKAMD NEGEL!"

A wave of magic washed over Gizmo, and he was suddenly back to normal.

Well, as normal as Gizmo would ever be.

"Wha… huh? Where am I?"

Starfire flew towards Raven, wrapping the dark teen in the gentlest hug a Tamaranian could manage giving the circumstances.

"Starfire. You're drenching wet. And hugging me. Not good."

"Sorry." Starfire backed away from Raven. "Shall we explain what has happened to Gizmo?"

"Maybe later," Raven said. After a moment, Raven's strange nonchalance gave way into a smile. "Kory," she said. "That strategy you used was brilliant. Incredibly dangerous, stupid, and masochistic, but brilliant. Let me see if I can fix some of the real wounds."

Starfire smiled broadly. "Thank you."

**

* * *

**

After reorienting Kid Wykkid and Libre, the now-five fighters in the crib left the ruined baby bed and plummeted together into the dark abyss below. Jinx was wary the whole time of the fact she was a traitor to them, a Titan amongst her former partners in crime.

But if those there chose to attack her in full force, there was really nothing she could do. She certainly couldn't overpower all of them—she had to trust that they still respected (some would say feared) her as their leader and would honor that…

Snapped out of her reverie, Jinx scanned the area again, her cat-like eyes useful in the dark. Nothing. No sign of Scalpel anywhere.

"Well where do ya think he coulda run off to?" Billy, now back to one for the sake of rest, asked aloud.

Jinx frowned. "I have no idea. Maybe the witch teleported him away."

"Idn't it a bit of whatcha'd call _I-RO-NEE_ that yer a' calling her a witch," Billy said, pointing at Jinx.

"If you don't want to follow my lead," she said, "Then go. See how far you giyut…" Jinx frowned. "GET," she corrected.

INSTIGATOR made a sound that might have been an approximation of a laugh. Jinx sighed. Billy's excessive vernacular could rub off on a girl, whenever Jinx would be around it for too long.

"Well, looky here, boys," Billy shouted, having run off to check out something he'd seen in the distance. "Looks like we found ourselves somthin' to keep us occupied with 'ntil we figure how exactly where we's a goin'!"

The rest of the group groaned at Billy's childishness, and went to see what he had found.

It turned out that his new interest was a series of letter and number blocks that kids often used to learn to spell, which was just WONDERFUL, as Billy began spelling and misspelling things that shall not be repeated in this fic, things that Jinx wished she hadn't had the 'pleasure' of reading.

"Would you knock it off," Jinx said. "We have work to do. Gauntlet got separated from us, and there are a bunch more people still unaccounted for. We have to either find them, or head for the exit and take anyone you can with you."

"This unit has weighed Subject Morrath, Llarenes' newfound concern for the fellow sapient, and found it intriguing. Further research is required."

"Shut up, Ed," Jinx barked, walking off…

"GUYS!" Libre suddenly shouted in heavily accented English. "_Mira_!"

Jinx shook her head disdainfully, and looked at what Carlos was pointing at—one of the letter blocks in his hand. So?

Jinx leaned over and looked at it closer…

And then it sneezed on her… "Oh…" said the block… "I… I'm sorry. Excuse me…"

"Tar my feathers," said Billy.

**

* * *

**

"I don't remember telling you any of that," Progeny said as he and Gauntlet walked into the next room… Suddenly, he trailed off and stared upwards…

At the night sky.

"Wow," Progeny said. "I guess I was right about all that stuff about being sealed in the bank being a lie."

Gauntlet glanced around the room they had walked into—it was decorated like an ancient Romanesque palace, with opulent columns and a fountain in the centre. Very plush. But something seemed off, such as the fact the stars weren't really twinkling at all…

"Not so fast," Gauntlet set the books aside and fired a beam straight up, and it slammed into the 'sky' with a light impact about 40 meters up.

"So much for being outside," Progeny muttered.

"Eh, fresh air is overrated," Gauntlet said. "Still, this room is nice."

The two started towards the other end, when suddenly a bright light exploded from beyond the exit door, and a figure clad in golden and black armor stepped forward.

Private Hive stood, looking like he always did except his hair was uncovered and combed into perfection, and the black part of his suit was decorated to resemble a tuxedo. "You are trespassing on our dear Mother's secret rooms," he barked.

"Oh," Progeny said, "And I suppose you're gonna stop us, mister shields-only?"

"I can and I will," Hive declared. "_Semper fi_!"

"You're just one man!" Gauntlet dismissed.

"I am one soldier," he retorted. "Send your thousands, one at a time or all in a rush; I don't give a cuss. NONE SHALL PASS!"

Gauntlet shrugged off the threat and turned to leave. "Well, if he feels that strongly about it…"

Suddenly, however, his exit was blocked by another silhouette. "What's your rush?" came the voice of Beast Boy, though much more menacing and psychotic-sounding that Gar ever could even fake.

"Oh horse manure," Gauntlet blurted. "I was thinking this would be easy."

"No," Beast Boy said. "It's never easy to obey mother…" he transformed into a Bengal tiger and charged forward. "BUT IT'S THE RIGHT THING!"

"Now you're talking!" Private Hive shouted, charging forward…

Gauntlet glanced over to Progeny. "For the record," he said, "I blame you…"

* * *

_Next Chapter: Terra reveals a horrible secret, and Mammoth is forced to fight his sister! _


	7. Hyperbole From Heck

**Teen Titans Legends  
Maternal Instinct Chapter Seven**

Angel arced down towards Robin, her razor wings threatening to slice him to ribbons. But the Boy Wonder was faster than the villainess, and backflipped out of the way just as Angel arrived. The girl managed to push up with her wings at the last minute, giving herself enough thrust to not slam into the ground.

Robin took advantage of the girl's momentary preoccupation and jumped forward, then kicked her and sent her hurtling away from him with a scream.

"Nice," Cyborg said, leveling his sonic cannon at Shimmer and firing off a round. Shimmer dodged. Then Mammoth smacked Cyborg's arm down so hard that Vic thought it was about to rip off.

"What do you think you're doing! That's my sister!"

Cyborg jumped away just as Shimmer got there and let her slam into Mammoth with all her body weight knocking him backwards. She followed this by transmuting his shirt into caustic acid.

"Yeah, she's all yours, Baran!" Cyborg shouted, running towards Angel.

Suddenly another patrol of Gingerbread soldiers materialized next to Cyborg and hurled themselves at them en masse. They weren't enough to take him down, but they caught him off guard and Cyborg plummeted with them off the high shelf and down into the sea of soldiers below.

"Cyborg!" Robin shouted, even as he arrived at Angel, swinging at her with his bo-staff. Unfortunately the distraction allowed Angel to catch him off guard with a sucker punch, and then the villainess followed it up with a kick to the stomach.

Robin didn't really feel it through his armor, but he was driven back enough to lose his advantage. He dodged over a swipe of razor-wing and hurled a birdarang at the other one, pinning it to the wall behind her.

Angela let out a scream and then retaliated by tossing a gum drop at Robin. Sensing the danger, Robin dived underneath it, only to have it explode as it slammed into Mammoth's now-bare back. The massive oaf snarled, already in pain from the acid and the beating his sister—who he was unwilling to harm—had been giving him.

"Watch it, Bird Boy!" he shouted over his shoulder.

Robin ignored him and tried to block another swipe from Angel's uninjured razor wing with his bo staff, only to have the weapon sliced in half at an angle, making the staff into two very sharp escrima sticks.

Okay, time for a new plan.

Robin lunged forward as she drew the wing back again, and stabbed one of the sticks into her other wing, and then into the wall. Then he bounded away and performed a spinning reverse crescent kick in the air, kicking the edge of his staff so hard with his steel-toed boot that it bent down.

It also sent a massive jolt of pain through his leg, forcing him to roll away from Angel's second gum drop grenade. Thankfully, both wings were impaled in places far out of the reach of Angel's arms, so Robin had plenty of time to get away from her and recover…

Suddenly, a weakened Mammoth toppled off of the shelf, even as his sister Selinda watched him fall, a sadistic grin on her face.

"Brother Baran has been bad. Bye bye Brother Baran."

"Ugh!" Robin snarled running forward and hurling his remaining escrima stick at Selinda, then jumping off the shelf and using his cape's memory cloth to glide down to the bottom… He'd fare a lot better against gingerbread men than he would against this new super Shimmer that May-Eye had created…

He hoped…

**

* * *

**

Terra felt like the chess game had been going on for an eternity, and had no idea how to respond to Noel's aggressive strategy. She was used to playing against Beast Boy, who normally played defensively if he played at all. But… perhaps a touchy subject with Noel.. perhaps if she brought it up, he would be distracted enough to make stupid mistakes.

"So," she started tentatively… "Why exactly did you blow up the base in Paris?"

Noel veinthrobbed. It was working. "Because," he said evenly. "They're criminals. I wanted to take their home away. No different than what the Titans did with Slade's first lair before I became a Titan."

"But… You killed a bunch of people…"

"There was nobody there to kill in Slade's lair, Terra," Noel said, clearly growing more annoyed.

"So, you think the Titans would have killed a bunch of people had they been there?" Tara asked, straining every ounce of acting talent she had to make it sound like an honest question, but rhetorical and disbelieving…

Noel bought it, it seemed.

"I'm not saying THAT!" He barked. "You're smarter than that Terra, so quit putting words in my mouth. You know I don't kill intentionally."

"Well, fine, but… You did end up vaporizing a third of our rogues gallery and—Well, you wouldn't have if you'd just kept your temper reigned in."

"Now you're just pushing my buttons," he muttered. "First Tim, now you. Yeah, I ACCIDENTALLY caused the deaths of a bunch of villains. No civilians got hurt, but that doesn't really matter because this blasted superhero morality that says even if a villain dies ACCIDENTALLY the hero has committed an unpardonable sin."

"I'm not saying that, but I still think you went overb—"

Savior cut her off. "Terra, you escaped getting caught. I didn't. The Brain wanted to EXTERMINATE us. Like we were rats. I had to stand around, frozen in ice, and listen to them make plans, gloat. Do you have any idea how these people can talk around their own? What they want?"

"Wait," said Terra. "You were conscious while you were frozen? How?"

"Shimmer."

"Oh." Terra, forgetting what she had started this conversation to accomplish, dived in. "I guess it's not the fact they died that bothers me so much, or even that it doesn't bother you that they did. It's the fact that they died because you were careless."

Savior didn't respond, but dodged the implication. "He wanted a war. I gave him one. And wars are mass psychosis. We all escaped alive. There was no damage to Paris except what the Brotherhood did themselves. I'd say that negates my carelessness."

" What if some of us had died? What if innocents had?"

" But they DIDN'T." Savior killed another of Terra's pawns.. she didn't have many left. Terra glanced at the board warily. "Tara, it's good to think of your mistakes. But navel gaze too long, you'll get lint on the brain. I made my choice, and every single hero can condemn me for it, no one's tried to arrest or charge me. No one's going to. So it's done."

After a moment, Terra made her movie.

Then Noel spoke again. "Besides, half the supervillain community is terrified of me now. They know I don't mess around."

"If it lets you sleep at night," Tara said absently.

Noel thought aloud. "Oh so that's the tact you want to adapt, hmmmm?"

After a beat, he continued. "Ok, answer me this: when I came down into the kitchen Thursday and found the chocolate sauce and the whipped cream everywhere, was that you and Gar or Tim and Kory? Because that was a MESS, Tara."

Suddenly, Terra felt the blood drain from her face. She had to answer this question cautiously or blow her big secret. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she said.

"You're lying."

Tara gave a nervous chuckle. "Am not. It sounds like Sophie was trying to get fatter or something!"

"When lying, watch your eyes, Tara. They betray you." Noel moved his remaining knight forward. "The left side of your brain is where information is stored. The right side is the 'creative' side. The side you use to lie. The side to which you just looked."

" I'm.. I'm…. Not lying," Tara said, forcing herself to look to the left. She wasn't lying—she didn't know who had made the mess… but Noel was prying into PERSONAL matters, darn it!

" When you try and remember something, your eyes flick up, ever so briefly…"

Suddenly, Tara totally lost it at the accusation Noel wasn't even thinking about making. " IT' NOT MY FAULT I'M STILL A VIRGIN, NOEL! DON'T JUDGE ME! DON'T JUDGE ME! YOU AND YOUR LUCK! BLASTED SKANK RAVEN _BLAH BLAH BLAH_ I'M NOT LISTENING!... It's not my fault even! It's all Gar's fault! Every time I'm in the mood he goes on and on about how Rita and Steve wouldn't approve and tells me to just fake it and pretend like we've gone all the way! He's driving me crazy! Everything you think you've heard since Light City was ALL A LIE! And a lie I'm **SICK OF!** ARUGH!"

Noel blinked after the childish rant had ended. "Terra. Too much information."

" Your right is my left!" Terra blurted, still covering her ears and closing her eyes. She opened them long enough to move a piece.

"I swear I have no idea about the chocolate. Like I said, it must have been Sophie making herself fatter…. Or something."

"Tara...I was insinuating whoever used it used it for...games."

Terra veinthrobbed. "I KNOW what you were insinuating... But that would have been heard by someone... Or recoded on tower security. What do you think the tower is? A Dodge Durango?"

"The doors were closed, and security was disabled…" Noel said, trailing off. "Which means it was Tim and Kory. Well hope he had fun. I didn't. I had to clean it up."

Terra shrugged.

"And we're young adults Terra," Noel said, turning his attention back to the chess board. "As long as you're using protection I don't care what you do."

Tara frowned. "I think we both need to forget this conversation ever happened."

"My thoughts exactly," Savior said, moving his knight one last time. "Checkmate."

"NO!" Terra shouted, staring at the board for any way out of check and finding none. "No, no, no!"

"When I was discussing the sensitive stuff Terra, you paid too much attention to me," said Savior. "Classic misdirection, my dear." He knocked Terra's king over with a finger…

And Terra, beaten by the strategy she was trying to use on Savior, walked to the other side of the safe and began to sulk.

**

* * *

**

Gauntlet and Progeny stood back to back next to the Venus-statue fountain, even as the possessed Beast Boy and Private Hive closed in on them… Beast Boy shrunk down and came back up, now a menacing grizzly bear, while Private Hive approached with his shield… which was nowhere near as menacing.

"Oh, man," Gauntlet said, "this isn't good. I hope my parents don't have to see my body. My mom doesn't handle violence well."

Progeny glared at him. "Your mom's a freaking NINJA, Candide."

"She's a sensitive ninja," Gauntlet protested. "Poisoned shuriken, a cracked neck, sure, but blood makes her freak."

"I don't believe you," Progeny said evenly.

Gauntlet just shrugged. What did he care whether or not Progeny believed his veritable mendacities? No skin off his bones.

Suddenly, Beast Boy leapt forward, trying to rip the skin of Gauntlet's bones with his razor sharp teeth. "You're ripping off jokes from _Ed, Edd, and Eddy _now?" Gauntlet whined. "You're really digging the bottom of the barrel."

"Shut up and fight!" Progeny said, grabbing a piece of the fourth wall and hurling it at Beast Boy. The changeling reeled from the blow and Progeny jumped on the bear's head, then hurled all of his body off, but left his feet there, pressing them telekinetically against Gar's neck, hoping to cut off the flow of blood to his brain.

The rest of his body, meanwhile, hurled itself at Private Hive, trying to bury Leonard in a flurry of punches, elbows, and knees… But Hive was able to block most of the blows, and bashed Progeny back with his shield. Gauntlet jumped in, grabbing Hive with his energy and hurling him across the room.

Beast Boy transformed into a massive gorilla and caught Hive, then threw him back at Progeny, which distracted the body dissembler long enough for Beast Boy to pry the feet from his neck, restoring blood flow.

Now really angry, Gar charged forward, gunning for Progeny. Rob jumped in between them, however, to intercept. Beast Boy raised both Gorilla arms up and made a hammer smash down towards the Titan. Gauntlet responded by holding up a massive broad shield made of Gauntlet energy. The resulting blow sent Gauntlet flying backwards through the Venus statue—but instead of knocking off the arms to make it look like the Venus de Milo as the cliché goes, he plowed through everything else, leaving only the base and the arms in tact.

Then he slammed into the wall and stopped caring about the statue. Now he had a massive headache…

Meanwhile, Progeny and Private Hive slammed into the railing of the false balcony they were fighting on, causing it to become less and less stable as their wrestling match continued along the precipice of the balcony, causing each other minor pain but neither really getting anywhere.

Gauntlet retaliated against Beast Boy by forming a dual set of giant hammers with the gauntlet energy, then slamming them into his head simultaneously. Gauntlet attacked again with a series of hammer strikes all over the changeling's body. Gar angrily dived forward, but Gauntlet was able to get up a shield in time to stop him.

Beast Boy then transformed into a wolf and dive tackled Gauntlet, going through a duo of hammer attacks that the boy-blunder had screwed up. Beast Boy roared, the sound hurting Gauntlet's ears even as he closed his eyes and prepared for the possessed shape-shifter to tear his throat out.

Suddenly, the smell of wolf vanished and he heard a familiar voice speak. "Would you stop it already, I'm on your side again!" Gar shouted.

"Oh…" Gauntlet said, his face turning red with embarrassment. "Sorry 'bout that."

"Yeah, you oughta be. These bruises are going to—"

"Up your street cred," Gauntlet cut him off.

"Yeah," said Gar, not disguising his annoyance.. "All, thanks to you, they're gonna up my street cred… I mean…" Gar shot a narrow-eyed glance at Rob, but then his expression soften, and became one of curiosity. "You really think they'll up my street cred?"

Taking his way out, Gauntlet nodded enthusiastically. "Oh, yeah. Most definitely. You'll be the talk of the town, Gar. Terra will dig it."

Suddenly, a cry of fear and pain from Progeny alerted them that the fight wasn't over. Gar and Rob turned to see Private Hive, Holding Progeny's head above his own, while all four of the young man's limbs were scattered across the floor, covered in pieces of statue or fourth wall and unable to come to the head's rescue.

"Surrender, soldiers!" ordered Hive, "Or I crush this man's head between my bare hands."

"You're wearing gloves," Gauntlet observed.

"DROP AND GIVE ME FIFTY!" Private Hive shouted. "You will not question authority, private. As long as you are rebelling against Mother, you are the enemy. Is that clear?"

"Crystal." The voice was not Gar or Rob's, but Progeny's. Suddenly, Progeny's torso, which had apparently gone over the edge of the balcony in the scuffle flew up and slammed into Private Hive's back, knocking him forward. Gauntlet jumped over the mind-controlled youth and used a Gauntlet-energy crow-bar to pry Hive's helmet off, and Beast Boy finished the job by smashing him over the head with one of the Venus statue's arms…

"Mission… Complete…" Private Hive said as he passed out from the concussion.

**

* * *

**

Thanks to Billy and Libre, carrying the block-people around was easy enough—Libre and INSTIGATOR could carry several, and Billy could carry one per duplicate. The hard part (for Jinx anyway) was getting them to shut up and just do the job. Unfortunately, being around her old associates was starting to wear on her. Thoughts questioning why she should care about these block people, what did they matter, kept popping into her head.

She tried to shut them out, and insist that she was different now… But in the presence of her the HIVE 5, all sorts of old memories were coming back to her. If only Cyborg were here. Everything seemed so obvious and clear when she was with him.

"Just keep on going," she called back through the narrow hallway. "I think we're almost to the next… room…?"

The room she entered was totally the opposite direction of from where they had come, and yet somehow they once again found themselves back in the giant candy room, complete with INSTIGATOR's discarded teddy bear outfit on the floor.

"Well tarnation," Billy3 said. "This is juuust great. Now where to, Miss Truth and Justice?"

Jinx veinthrobbed. "Well, in any event, we're not going to starve as long as we're here. Put the blocks down and rest for a minute while I think about what to do next."

All the Hive members complied, and separated into two camps—Billy and Kid Wykkid on one side, and Ed, Llarenes, and Carlos on the other. The second camp, while certainly not composed of good guys, trusted Jinx enough to get the job done. Billy and Kid Wykkid may have had other plans in mind. Problem was, with Billy on that side, they were outnumbered 2 to 3.

"This unit," began Ed, "suggests that we take no action that could potentially incite distrust within this group."

"They already distrust me," Jinx said. "I doubt you two really do."

Libre glanced at her. "_Te __confiamos como lider. Es suficiente."_

Jinx gave him a weak smile. "I didn't understand a word of that, but thanks." She looked over towards one of the room's windows, and stared out into the blackness… Until suddenly, that void was filled by a massive green eye.

**

* * *

**

Starfire and Raven hovered through the MC Escher-esque maze of illogical corridors and special impossibilities that the bank had become under the influence of Mother May-Eye. Gizmo, his ability to speak temporarily sealed off by Raven after he'd given her too much lip, tagged along behind silently.

Suddenly, Starfire's head turned towards what appeared to be a tiny gingerbread house and hovered over towards it, her head titled to the side in curiosity.

"What is it, Star?" asked Raven.

"It is strange. I could have just sworn I heard the voices of Billy, the Kid Wykkid, and Friend Llarenes coming from the amusing little edible dwelling."

"That's not probable," Raven said. "Unless we've been grown to massive proportions, or unless they've been shrunk."

"Magic is capable of this, yes?" Starfire asked.

"Well, true," Raven said, "But would May-Eye have that kind of magic?"

The question hung in the air for a bit. "Shall I look?" Starfire asked at length.

Raven frowned. "Knock yourself out, just don't eat the whole house in one bite."

Smiling broadly, Kory hovered over to the house and examined the interior, placing her eye up to one of the small windows…

Inside, it was a wonder land of delicious earth treats—the walls, floor, everything were all made of sweets. There was also a large stack of strange building blocks, dividing two groups of action figures…

No, not action figures… PEOPLE!

The Jinx figure suddenly saw the eye about the same time Starfire realized that it was really Jinx and not just a toy, and both gasped.

"Friend Jinx!" She blurted. "What has happened to you? You are so small!"

"Starfire!" Jinx gasped. "How the… What… made you so.. big?"

"I was unaware that it was I who was large… I merely assumed that you had been shrunk…"

Billy Numerous stepped forward. "You know, us being the ones shrunk would make a lot more sense than her being the big'un. I mean, it would explain that their giant crib we fought in, and why these here play blocks are big as a spittoon can."

"My gosh…" Jinx exclaimed. "You're right, Billy!"

Billy smiled broadly. "It's been a dream of the fam'ly to be right f'rt near three generations. Grandpa and mah Dad/Uncle would be proud."

"_Billy fue correcto? Es el fin del mundo!"_ shouted Libre.

Suddenly, Raven's voice boomed from outside the room the miniature heroine and villains were trapped in… "Who are you talking to, Kory?"

"It is our friend Jinx and our... not.. friends, Libre, the Kid Wykkid, INSTIGATOR, and Billy the Numerous."

Suddenly, Raven's massive violet eye appeared in the window next to Starfires. "Oh. You were right."

"Indeed," said Star. "Raven, do you think you can help our fellow victim's retain proper size?"

"Maybe. Hold on." Raven closed her eyes and began meditating. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos, Azarath Metrion Zinthos…"

Gizmo began poking on Raven's shoulder, and groaning something.

"Not now, Mikron. I'm busy."

The tapping got more insistent, but Raven continued to ignore him.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos. Azarath Metrion Zinthos."

Gizmo fumed, flying over to Starfire and poking on her shoulder. Starfire turned to see what Gizmo wanted. "How may I be of service to you?"

"MMM! MMM! MMM!" Gizmo 'shouted' through his unworking lips, pointing off in another direction… Starfire followed his finger… Suddenly, her face grew alarmed.

"Raven…" she began, tapping on the younger woman's shoulder. "Raven…"

"Starfire, I'm busy. This is a really delicate spell. I can't be interrupted…"

Starfire began to sweat as she nervously hummed a few bars of _Ruthga Bumgorf_. "Raven, I really insist that you must turn your attention away from the small ones momentarileeeiiii…."

Starfire's last word transformed into a squeal as a she jumped out of the way, a red tentacle lashing by, shocking Raven out of her focus…

"What in the name of Azar…?"

Raven looked up to find her answer. A massive beast that resembled a lovecraftian entity.

Made of pure red licorice. Its head and gaping maw were like the Sarlaac of Tatooine, but without the Special Edition 'beak' attached. This was surrounded by a gaggle of licorice tentacles that waved ominously, even as the creature drew closer.

"Why didn't someone mention we were being attacked?" Raven asked.

"We tried," Starfire said. "But you were preoccupied by your spell-weaving."

"Remind me to tell Noel how much I _don't_ appreciate his traits rubbing off on me." The Azarathian turned back to the floating gingerbread house. "Sorry guys, I don't have time to do this right. This should make you big again, but where you'll end up, I can't say. **_REKAMD NEGEL!"_**

The spell surrounded the gingerbread house, and in an instant, it was gone. Raven turned and waved a hand, unlocking the speech center of Gizmo's brain.

"You crud munching Titan!" he shouted.

"Mikron, shut up and fight." Raven floated forward, her eyes glowing black. "Where is Savior?" she demanded of the monster. "Azarath…"

Starfire swooped forward, peppering the creature with Starbolts, while Gizmo, down to just a few weapons, used his classic low-yield energy beam to blast the tentacles away.

"Metrion…"

The creature charged forward, its tentacles a flurry of motion…

**_"ZINTHOS!"_**

**

* * *

**

Elsewhere…

Deep underneath Jump City, there is quite a complex system of pipes and sewers. It was the perfect place for Slade to hide his second lair, and it would have served the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or perhaps their foe the Rat King, quite nicely.

Right now, only two beings inhabited this area, one the descendant of a demon, the other an android…

Metatron and Viridian.

"And," asked Viridian, "How exactly did this flame war get started?" Her voice was completely without emotion, her question asked without any evident curiosity.

"Well, I just commented on his movie," replied Metatron, "saying that it was pretty good but he needed to mute the sound effects in the starship bridge scenes because they were distracting. He replied by saying that they 'set the ambiance' and he'd leave them in if he wanted to."

"And then you lost your temper," Viridian observed.

"Well, pretty much," answered the demon. "But he was the one who acted like a jerk to begin with."

"It seems strange that ambient noise in these online facsimiles of real movies is so frowned upon. Did not most old science fiction have such unrealistic onomatopoeia?"

"Well, yeah," said Met. "And it was annoying as hell there, too."

"I trust that is hyperbole," said Viridian. "I find it unlikely that any medium of entertainment, no matter how poorly made, could be as annoying as hell in the literal sense."

"You'd be surprised, Bliss," Metatron said. "Hell can't be as bad as they say. I must have been there five years and I don't remember a thing."

Viridian shook her head. "From the report I downloaded, your soul never even left your body in the first place. Your 'death' was essentially a prolonged death-like coma, not entirely unlike what Superman suffered after his first battle with Doomsday."

Metatron scowled at her. What did she know about dying? Sure, she'd had her body destroyed a few times, but she was a machine. She didn't die like a person would. Then again, it was that attitude towards her that resulted in most of her negative opinions of humanity… And he didn't actually remember anything in the five years between his death and return… So where _had _he been? Perhaps he would never really know. Perhaps he'd be better off without such knowledge.

Met quickly changed the subject. "Hey, here we are. Unless I'm reading the map wrong, this pipe directly ahead will lead us right underneath the bank."

"If the heroes up on the surface were incapable of breaching the shield around this facility, what makes you so certain we can get in down here?"

"Simple," said Metatron. "If you can't go through a dome-shield, go under it."

"But what if the shield is not a dome, but rather fits the entire building—including all possible points of entry—in a form-fitting manner?"

"Nonsense," Met said. "No supervillain is that sma---"

**_KRAKOW_**

Metatron's sentence was cut off as he walked into an invisible magic barrier identical to the one on the surface, which threw him to the ground.

"As I suspected," Viridian said. "This entire venture was a complete waste of time."

Metatron's face transformed into an expression of sheer determination. "I'm not giving up that easily."

"Suit yourself," Viridian said. "I believe I will shut off and recharge while you expend precious time and energy on futility."

As the android did just that, Metatron summoned his yellow fire energy, and began blasting at the shield. He'd get in there, even if it sent him back to an early grave.

"Waste of energy," Viridian commented. "I am going to shut down until you concur. Restart me with the word 'affirmative'."

"Affirmative," Met said absently.

"Was that an attempt at humor?" Viridian asked, as she began shutting down. "Remember that your audience is currently devoid of emotion."

"Yeah, yeah," Metatron said. He went back to blasting, hoping he could get the two inside before the Titans were all dead…

If they weren't dead already…

**0000**

Some time later, Private Hive had finally come to, and was now trying to regain his bearings with the help of the rather unhelpful Progeny. Still, it was better than having to admit to needing the help of one of the blasted Teen Titans. "Now what will we do, soldier?"

"Well, as long as the bank is like this, a bank heist is out of the question. Best case scenario is that the Titans get themselves killed or at least beat up in the process of fixing this mess and we get away, preferably with some loot."

"That would be dishonorable conduct for a soldier. No man left behind, not when they're our only ticket to freedom."

"We're not soldiers," Progeny protested. "We're criminals. We can do whatever we want once we're out of here, and we can do whatever we need to to get out of here."

"Ahem."

The two HIVE members turned to see Gauntlet standing over them. "If you two are done plotting against us, we might have a job for you."

"What… do you mean…?" Progeny asked, gulping.

Beast Boy chimed in. "Rob said you told him about some sort of crystal that was keeping everyone sealed inside the bank, and everyone outside sealed in, right?"

"He says I did," replied Progeny. "I don't have any memory of it."

Gauntlet reached into his pocket removed the... script. How he had the script to a story he was participating in is anybody's guess. Perhaps he perchasedi t off eBay. Nevertheless, he had it, and thumbed through the pages until he got to the right spot. "Ah, here it is."

"_Because," Progeny started, almost giddy with glee. "Mother has placed a massive impenetrable field of magic around the whole building! The only way to get in is to shatter the **Indestructible Gem of the Ultimate Seal Spell**, which is INSIDE on the top floor and guarded by…"_

"So," said Beast Boy, "we just go to the top floor and take down whatever is guarding this indestructible crystal, which we then must destroy. Simple enough."

"See, Logan," Rob said. "I told you Chaltab was the fair one! I may have lost at the video game, but now we get to be the big heroes."

"Yeah, right," Beast Boy said, trailing off. "It almost seems… too easy."

"Shut up or you're going to jinx us," Gauntlet said. "Just let me grab my bag of books and let's be off. Besides, I have a score to settle with that witch for making me dig through a pie for body parts."

"My body parts," Progeny reminded him. "I mean she was gonna flippin' eat me!"

"And that is why we have to shut her down," Rob said. "Now come on, Arturo, Leonard. You're going to be the Big Heroes with us--whether you like it or not!"

**

* * *

**

As Robin and Cyborg continued to tear through the masses of Gingerbread men, dodging the tentacles of the Licorice Warriors, Tim's mind began working…. As he noticed something.

Jumping atop a Snickerdoodle Samurai, Robin got a good enough vantage point to see that indeed the forces were emptying out of the giant kitchen, going elsewhere as if they were preparing for a battle. The Licorice Warriors had all but one left, and that one was more acting as a guard than combatant, smacking at anyone who got too close to the massive door the exodus was happening from.

His suspicions were further confirmed when he noticed they were arming themselves to the proverbial teeth with candy cane staffs, gumdrop grenades, and lollypop mallets. Quickly removing a birdarang, Robin dug it into the Samurai's neck, tearing the head off and back flipping away as it collapsed…

"Cyborg," he shouted. "That oven is producing more soldiers by the minute. Shutting it down gives us a tactical advantage."

"Right!" he shouted back. "How should we go about it?"

"It's a gas oven," Robin observed. "Tell Mammoth to smash open the door, then we'll sonic boom it."

"Sounds like a plan, but you might have to take on his sister while he's working!" Vic's words were emphasized when Mammoth flew over and landed on the pile of Gingerbread Soldiers that Robin was just about to thrash.

"Baran, go smash a hole in that giant oven, trust me. I have a plan."

"Sure, if you say so," he said. "But if I find out you hurt my sister…"

"JUST GO, I'll take care of Shimmer."

"Right," Mammoth said… "Be gentle."

Robin shook his head. Shimmer could be just as deadly as anyone else in the HIVE—scratch that, _more_ deadly. She could transmute the blood in Superman's veins to kryptonite given the chance and a good reason to do so. It would turn back to blood eventually, sure, but by then the damage would be done.

Tim had all this in mind as he charged forward, his bo-staff ready to strike, ready to do whatever was needed to take Shimmer down--because Mammoth wouldn't.

Shimmer saw Robin coming and grabbed a chunk of a destroyed solider and transmuted the Gingerbread into acid. Robin rolled away from the caustic liquid and swept Shimmer's legs from under her with his staff, then jumped forward as she got up, striking her in the face with his palm. (That was his brand of gentle.)

Shimmer retaliated by trying to reach for his chest and transmute it into something awful. Robin blocked her hands long before they got close enough, however, knocking her arms aside with his bo and then taking a step back as he brought the staff down on her shoulder and neck, striking major nerve cluster.

Destabilized, Shimmer staggered back then knelt down. She had apparently been weakened severely by the blow.

At the last minute Robin remembered that appearances can be deceiving, and jumped away as Shimmer's hands it the floor, and the floor where Robin had been standing became hot tar.

"Rebellious little boy!" Shimmer shouted, leaping over the tar pit she had just created and slamming her elbow into the Boy Wonder's face. Tim took the blow in kind, falling backwards and thrusting his leg into Shimmer's gut and lifting her off the ground with a thrust of his leg. Shimmer's flight was cut short, however, when Angel, riding on Cyborg's sonic cannon beam, sailed over Robin's head, slamming into Shimmer and the two of them flying off into the distance where they slammed into the refrigerator…

Robin and Cyborg both darted over, throwing a precursory glance back at the oven to see that Mammoth was having trouble getting there. He might need help, but that would come after the girls were subdued…

As the Titans approached, a confused and panicked look stretched across the face of Shimmer. "STOP! Wait…!"

She looked fearfully at the Titans. "Before you arrest me, please tell me why my head hurts so bad, and why I'm in such a stupid outfit."

Angel glanced at her, and gave a shrug that indicated she was wondering the same thing.

Cyborg and Robin looked at each other, the former shrugging. "Well?"

"We need all the help we can get," Robin said. "Selinda, Angela, consider yourself honorary Titans for the time being."

"Whoopee," said Angel, as she began to massage her aching temples.

* * *

_Well, that's it for chapter seven. I've thought of a new plot twist, so things are going to be moving a bit faster than I'd originally planned. Stay tuned for the next chapter. It should come faster than this one._


	8. Command and Conquer

**Maternal Instinct  
Chapter Eight: Command and Conquer**

Tara sighed. They had been in the vault for far too long. "You know, I don't like what you did earlier."

"And that is?" Savior asked absently.

"You pulling your mental tricks on me." Tara's accusation stung mildly.

Frowning, Savior shook his head ironically. "I assume you mean causing you to give me far more information than I needed about your sex life."

"Exactly! I don't appreciate it! You were trying to brainwash me, not cool!"

Noel gave Terra an unpleasant cynical smirk. "Who says I was actively TRYING to brainwash you?"

"You can't brainwash me by accident!" Terra blurted.

"Why can't I?"

" Because...I know you!"

"That may not matter Tara." Savior looked around. "The human mind is amazingly malleable...in good and bad ways."

"Brainwashing...doesn't take much." Motioning with his white-gloved hand, Noel indicated the vault they were locked in. "Isolation…Threats of death... perhaps interspersed with random acts of kindness. It's been recorded that within 72 hours brainwashing can set in. Or have you not heard of Stockholm syndrome?"

Tara eyed Savior warily. He was starting to creep her out. "You mean like when kidnapped people start to become fond of their captors? Like with that Smart girl in Washington?"

"Exactly." Savior quickly launched into an explanation. "Stockholm, Sweden, 1973. A botched bank robbery forces the robbers to take hostages. After only six days, when the SWAT team finally attacked, the captives actually fought with the team who was there to rescue them. They also refused to press charges and actively raised money for their captor's defense. And this was with robbers who meant them harm. Six days Terra. _Six days_."

Terra blinked. "I always heard it was five."

Savior ignored her. "Now...imagine what a friend who knows a lot more about the human mind could do in three hours? I'm not brainwashing you? But how can you know...if I didn't want you to think that?"

A deep frown stretched across Terra's face, and she began to feel sick at her stomach. "This is depressing," she said.

Savior's expression lightened. "Relax Terra. I'm _not_. And don't start on the 'But what if he just wants me to think that.' That's a direct path to madness. Navel gaze too long and you'll get lint on the brain. But also remember...perception is the most powerful force in the universe. The human mind…well… _isn't_."

After a minute of silence, Savior sighed. "Look, Terra, I didn't mean to creep you out. Want to play another game to take your mind off of this?"

"We've played chess five times already," Terra whined… "Let's play… something.. _else_…"

**

* * *

**

Light. Sound. Nothing…

Then light and sound again… Jinx, Billy, Ed, Donavon, and Carlos suddenly found themselves face first on the ground, a tingling sensation running throughout their bodies. But the feeling quickly faded as they all rose, and examined their surroundings…

Giant fruits lay strewn about, as did metal meat hooks that looked as though they had been ripped off their chains and thrown about. There was a general look of damage to the room… A look that caused Jinx's eyes to light up.

"Where are we?" asked Billy Numerous.

"_No se,"_ replied Libre.

"Guys, can it. I think we are back in the bank's atrium," Jinx said. "There's the teller counter that got smashed earlier, and the vault…"

"Someone ain't got a lick'a sense when it comes to redecoratin' the place," Billy said, observing that the formerly professional colors of the bank splotched with pinks and purples, with candy cane wall paper and busts of Gingerbread men instead of important patrons. "And I reckon that someone is Mother Mae-Eye."

"This unit believes your reckoning to be correct," said INSTIGATOR. "The desire to smash her face in has risen 300 in the last thirty seconds."

"We won't be smashing anybody's face in if we're trapped in here," Jinx said. "I'd say split up, but I don't trust any of you."

Kid Wykkid raised his hand.

"Yes?" Jinx asked.

The dark teen responded by motioning his hand towards the doors of the bank, shrouded by a strange veil of darkness, the glass turned opaque.

"You want us to go and smash that there door down?" Billy reasoned. "Might work…" Billy divided in two. "Mighten' it, Billy?"

The second Billy responded. "Just might do it, Billy."

"First, we need to find out what happened to the letter-blocks people we were rescuing," Jinx said. "

The original Billy shrugged, dividing into seven more copies, making a total of eight. "None a' us know a thing," seven of them said in unison.

The eight Billy, who was facing a different' direction than the other seven, grinned. "E'cept me, o'course. They're right over there next to them gigantic pears'n'plums."

He pointed to a pile of small blocks near the giant fruits, and everyone nodded when they saw that Billy was, once again, correct. Hell must have been getting pretty cold by this point, Jinx mused.

Then she sighed. "Fine, let's go smash the doors down then."

The vocal Hive members all gave cheers of assent as the strolled off to the sealed-off portals, and began an effort that gradually proved futile.

Perhaps it would have been prudent for them to read the message that had been arranged on the lettered and numbered blocks stacked by the fruits. For they spelled out a clear message, a threat from the one who had orchestrated the entire ordeal.

This message was simply: _N0NE SHALL ESCAP3_

**

* * *

**

Gizmo and Starfire flew straight up through the maze of Escher-like worlds and paradoxical rooms, blasting with everything they had at the pursuing licorice creature. Raven was behind it, blasting its mouth with her dark energy, but to no avail—the energy was worthless against the head/body of the organism…

Raven flew left as she sliced off an attacking tentacle with a wave of dark energy. But as it fell away, another popped up to replace it, and Raven reacted quickly, again cutting it away.

Three more lanced out and Raven used a single wave to slice them all off, but was hit in the temple by a forth one hard enough to daze her. The tendril that hit her then coiled around her leg and jerked her towards the gaping maw of the licorice monster.

"Raven!" shouted Starfire. The Tamaranian girl swooped down, blasting at the tentacles that got close. The shots did little damage, but Star was able to dodge the tendrils and grab a hold of Raven. "I have you, friend."

"Starfire, pull!" Raven shouted, and the princess complied, flying away from the creature…

Unfortunately, it seemed that Starfire just wasn't strong enough without leverage—the tentacle began coiling ever closer to the mouth, even as Raven struggled to regain her senses and control over her powers…

Suddenly, Gizmo, now wearing some sort of mechanically-enhanced suit, blasted forward and slammed into the side of the creature. The momentum knocked it sideways, dragging Raven and Starfire with it.

Raven yet out a yell and her powers exploded out from her, knocking Starfire away. "Cut it out!" Raven barked. "You're going to tear my arm off before you break the tentacle."

"Sorry," Starfire said. She flew down and wrapped her arms around Raven's waist, and then flew backwards as hard as she could… "Can you not cut yourself free?"

Raven attempted to do so, but the energy blade manifested itself as a tiny speck fifty meters from Raven's intended target. Raven sighed. "No, the tentacle is doing something to short out my powers."

Then, Gizmo blasted a missile at the base of the tentacle that had Raven, but it was swatted away. Gizmo, angered by this, charged forward.

"No!" Raven shouted. "You're going to get yourself killed!"

Gizmo didn't listen, his mech suit suddenly transforming so that it was covered in buzz saws and other sharp objects. Gizmo started trying to cut through the licorice tentacles, but they quickly over-powered him, and Gizmo became tangled in the mess of tendrils.

"Idiot," Raven hissed.

"His actions are truly those of a fool," Starfire agreed.

Gizmo rocketed up and away from the head, but the tentacles were more powerful than his thrusters, and eventually, Gizmo was pulled into the licorice monster's mouth.

Starfire gasped, and pulled as hard as she could, removing one hand from Raven's waist long enough to hurl a super Starbolt at the head of the creature—it slammed into it and a huge spray of candy goo exploded from the side of the monster's face.

"_Alka seltzer!" _Starfire cheered.

Raven stifled a laugh. "It's _excelsior_, Starfire." Unfortunately, Starfire 'whooshed' away loudly as Raven spoke, so the words weren't quite heard exactly right.

"Oh, yes!" Starfire called back. "Exlax-ior!"

Raven frowned. Why couldn't Starfire have kissed an eloquent novelist when she first landed on Earth?

Suddenly, Raven remembered that Gizmo was still being digested, and flew towards Starfire, who was throwing a flurry of Starbolts at the approaching licorice creature. Unfortunately, the tentacles were too numerous, and were deflecting the Starbolts before they could impact the monster's head.

"Starfire!" Raven shouted as she flew over.

"Yes?" Star asked, still hurling a flurry of blasts at the monster.

"Starfire, stop for a minute!"

"I cannot stop!" Starfire made another super Starbolt and tried to force it through the wall of tentacles, but to no avail. "At this rate Adversary Gizmo will be digested long before we can save him!"

"We need to make a new plan!" Raven said, finally using her powers to hold Starfire back. "This one _isn't _working."

"What do you suggest then?" Starfire demanded, perhaps more harshly than she had intended. She was clearly quite distraught with her inability to puncture the creature's defenses.

"Haven't you been paying attention?" Raven asked, also more harshly than she has intended. "My energies cut through the tentacles with no problems, but aren't effective against the head. You're Starbolts keep getting deflected by the tentacles but tore the head open earlier…"

"Of course," Starfire said. "We shall attack together."

"Yes, but wait…"

Starfire had started to do their mutual 'spinning death drill' attack—the one they had used to knock out XL Terrestrial in the battle with the Brotherhood of Evil, but Raven restrained her.

"What is it?"

"Starfire, that might not work. Remember what happened to Mikron."

"Then what do you suggest?"

Raven thought a minute. "Make a Starbolt. A big one."

Starfire quickly complied, forming a starbolt the size of a tractor tire, which hovered over her head until she brought it down…"Please hurry," she said. "Restraining this power is very difficult…"

Raven nodded. "Azarath, Metrion, ZINTHOS!"

A black sphere of energy immediately surrounded the Starbolt, then quickly flattened around it into a wedge shape, like the stabbing edge of a knife. Raven then hurled the combined energy blast towards the monster.

Tendrils of licorice lanced out, making a net that would catch the attack… Or so the monster had thought.

The dark energy sliced through the tentacles with ease, then arced towards the tentacle monster's maw…

Just then, Raven dissipated the energy, and the giant Starbolt sailed into the creature's mouth.

_**KRAKOOM!**_

The monster exploded into a stream of melted licorice and starbolt energy, the goo flying everywhere as the creature gave one last writhe, it's tentacles flailing wildly… And then it died.

Raven saw that Gizmo, scared out of his wits but alive, was still strapped inside the creature's innards as it began to fall away…

Suddenly, from somewhere within the creature, light began to pour out, filling the room… And then becoming a vacuum, pulling everything—even space itself—towards the creature's corpse…

"Raven, what is going on?"

Raven shook her head hopelessly… She had no idea, but she had a bad feeling about it..

Gizmo was the first to be pulled into the vortex, then Starfire, and finally Raven…

Light consumed them all.

**

* * *

**

"I spy," Savior said, then mumbled something that vaguely resembled 'with my little eye', finally finishing, "…something blue…"

Terra sighed. "My iris."

Noel swore. "How did you get that one so easily?"

"Because," Terra said, "you did that one ten minutes ago, and my eyes and yours are the only blue objects in this bloody vault!" Terra's small rant had amped up in volume and increased in pitch as she continued so that the word vault was almost a screech.

"Calm down," Savior said. "It's bad enough we've been reduced to playing a game for five year old girls. Don't make my headache worse by going harpy on me."

Savior leaned his head back against the wall of the vault and gradually became aware of a pounding sensation that gradually got louder. "Terra," he said, "stop that."

"Stop what?"

"That pounding?"

Savior didn't open his eyes, but he heard Terra lean forward. "Noel, that pounding isn't _me… _It's coming from outside the vault."

"That means someone's coming. So start using my code name or I'll delete my real name from your cerebral cortex."

"Geez," Tara sighed. "Are we going to go through with the ambush plan? Surely they think we've passed out by now."

"Best idea I've heard all day," Noel muttered. Both Titans lay themselves down on the floor of the safe, waiting as the pounding got louder… Their eyes were closed tightly (from fatigue more than from good pretending, Noel feared,) and they heard rather than saw the rending of metal from its former un-rent state.

A Shimmer strand slid from Noel's finger to Terra's ear with the simple message of 'get ready' just as the door came flying off the steel hinges with a loud tearing noise. The air distorted subtly as the attackers hovered closer towards the two 'victims'…

Savior sent one final message to Terra via the Shimmer strand… 'NOW!'

Terra and Savior came to life, immediately leaping into the air to attack their adversaries. Terra, lacking any ability to use her rock powers, began violently pounded the blue-shrouded beast that had attacked Noel and Savior swung a sharpened S4 blade at the orange red-haired monster that had gone after Terra…

Wait a friggin minute…

Savior's mind responded a split second before his body, as he was already swinging even as the signals stopped crossing and decided that yes, this thing he was about to eviscerate was indeed Starfire.

The whole thing took only a fraction of a second, but that was almost a fraction too long.

Savior stopped the blade after it had dug perhaps a molecule's width into Starfire's skin. Had he gone any farther, the pain would have begun.

The stunned alien girl only stared at him in total shock, managing a light, high pitched acknowledgment:

"Eep.."

"St… Starfire…?" Savior realized.

Raven, on the other hand, was not so lucky as the Tamaranian. Terra, in her merciless assault, had battered the Azarathian with more punches than Rocky Balboa had taken in the course of all five _Rocky_ movies.

And she hadn't stopped by the time Raven used her dark energy to forcibly jerk the girl off her, trying to use her powers to placate the boredom-addled brain of the blond geokinetic.

"Terra!" shouted Savior.

"STOP IT!" demanded Raven simultaneously.

Tara gasped as Raven threw her backwards, and gasped again when Savior quickly wrapped her up in a Shimmer cocoon… Anyone observing Savior's face would have known that this was a VERY bad time to be on his bad side. And at the moment, Terra was. In a _bad_ way. "STOP BEATING THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF MY GIRFLRIEND!" Noel demanded. "That's an order!"

"Please!" Starfire admonished, flying forward and grabbing Noel. "Friend Savior, do not engage in such violent demands against Friend Terra!"

Only for Koriand'r's sake did Savior force himself to calm down. "Sorry, Star," he said. "I got carried away."

Raven rubbed her temples and her bloody nose. "Who in all nine levels of hell had the bright idea to blindly ambush whoever opened the safe?"

Like a deer in the headlights, Savior just stared blankly at his girlfriend, fighting back the giant sweatdrop that he knew would soon manifest over his head. Terra's accusing glance didn't make it any easier.

"Would it help if I apologized?" Savior and Terra asked simultaneously, though it was obvious Tara was far more sincere about it than Noel. Still, the both glanced at each other after speaking in unison.

Raven frowned. _No wonder those two were together in Timothy Trevor's world._

"So, if you crud-munchers were planning to ambush whoever came in there, how the snot were you able to breath?" The question came from a voice that Noel hadn't heard in a while. I'm sure you can guess who it is.

Savior turned to see Gizmo standing not twenty feet away. And he wasn't alone. Billy, Kid Wykkid, INSTIGATOR, Libre, and oddly Jinx, were all standing together near him. Jinx didn't seem to be doing anything villainous, and in fact her facial expression, Savior though, looked rather nervous at having her back to her former comrades.

"Am I missing something?" Savior tensed, preparing shimmer strands for combat, and extending several from his back just in case. "Aren't all these people under arrest?"

"Until we've stopped that witch and gotten ourselves out of this bank," Raven said, "it would be best to keep them on our good side. For now."

"I suppose," said Savior after a moment. "Where are the rest of the Titans?"

Jinx answered this question. "Gauntlet was with us at first, but we got separated in the library. And now we have no idea where that is, or if it even still exists."

Starfire picked up. "And has anyone seen Robin, Mammoth, Cyborg, Beast Boy, or any of the other missing Hive Members?"

"Nigel…" Jinx said sadly.. "I've seen Nigel, but…"

"He's a WORKIN' WITH MOTHER MAE-EYE NOW, though!" Billy Numerous blurted. "Dang witch went and made herself you're alien pal's little missy."

Starfire facevaulted. "I believe the proper expression for this instance is 'yikes'," she said.

"No," said Savior. "That's definitely more of a _BLECHK_! Why would the witch make everyone else her 'children' but Scalpel her… husband?"

"Does it matter?" Raven asked after a moment. "Scalpel would never willingly submit to such humiliation. He's under a spell, and I can dispel that magic just as easily as I can the rest of her powers."

"That spell came in handy a few times earlier," Jinx said, nodding a silent thanks to Raven, and Raven realized what she meant when Libre and Kid Wykkid both nodded too...

"So," Savior said at length. "Do we wait for the rest of the team to arrive, or go rescued them and risk getting lost again ourselves?"

"Mae-Eye is using her mystical powers to distort space-time," INSTIGATOR said. "It is unlikely that even this unit's sensors can navigate this establishment under such conditions. And all efforts to create an exit through technology and sheer force have proven ineffectual."

"In other words," said Savior, "we're gonna wait."

"No!" said Starfire. "We mustn't wait. If we wait, our friends could come to harm!"

"Well," said Gizmo, "you crud-eaters can be my guest. I ain't sticking my neck out for a stinking pit-sniffer like Robin or Gauntlet."

"But we must!" Starfire protested.

"Star, I think it is best if we wait… for now at least…" Savior started..

Suddenly, a huge group of gingerbread soldiers suddenly appeared around them, surrounding the Titans and Hive members…

"Oh crud," muttered Gizmo.

Libre slammed his palm into his masked face. "!_Ay, el tormento_¡_Nunca termina_!"

**

* * *

**

Using Robin's thermal-dampening cape to protect his face from the insides of the War Oven had been Cyborg's own idea. And Vic was definitely beginning to question his own sanity. Even wearing Boy Wonder's rag on his head, the oven was _hot_, and he was afraid the Molybdenum Steel his armor plating was made of would melt soon. The heat was so suffocating he could barely breath, but he had to do this—he was the only one who could survive the temperatures of the oven.

Smashing all the gas- tubes and conduits he could find, Cyborg was making absolutely certain that the oven was full of it before he came out of there.

Which he finally did, blasting a couple of gingerbread men even as he leapt out of the hole Mammoth had made in the tube, then broke into a dead sprint, tearing Robin's cape off his head as he ran. "DO IT NOW!"

Angel, holding a lump of dead gingerbread soldier, held out her hand as Shimmer transmuted the stuff into a highly volatile explosive…. "There. It won't last long, though!" Shimmer said.

Angel swooped down, closing her wings as Mammoth grabbed her by the legs and threw her as hard as he safely could towards the hole in the oven. The winged girl plowed through a group of Gingerbread Soldiers that tried to stop her and spread her razor-wings at the last moment, then hurled the incendiary device into the oven…

Two seconds ticked by where everyone held their breath… and then…

**_KRAKALOOOOOOM!_**

As Angel flew straight up and everyone else hit the ground and covered their heads, an enormous fireball erupted from the Mae-Eye War Oven, consuming dozens of already-baked gingerbread men and stopping production in its tracks.

Mammoth smiled broadly. "That was good."

Nodding in assent, Cyborg quietly spoke. "Boo-yah."

Suddenly, Robin noticed something troubling—where the oven had been destroyed, there now rested what could only be described as a white void of nothing… But it was acting like a black hole, sucking everything in, and growing as it consumed more and more of the loose objects in the room… including Mae-Eye's own gingerbread soldiers…

"Oh, man, just when this was getting good!" Cyborg blurted. "Now we have to deal with another spatial anomaly that seems to be destroying reality. Just great."

"Destroying reality?" Angel blurted. "Then DO something! Stop it!"

"You can't destroy reality!" Shimmer blurted. "Can you? Reality is an abstract concept! It's not like you can just take out your aggression on it by punching it into submission!"

"Of course not, sis," Mammoth said. "Totally ridiculous."

"You guys don't read very many comic books, do you?" asked Cyborg. "That said, I have no idea how to stop this. I think we're all pretty much screwed.."

Just as Cyborg said that, the table top from earlier was sucked into the void, making it double in size and suction power, and Cyborg was jerked forward into the white nothing. Despite their best efforts to escape or anchor themselves, Baran, Angela, Selinda, and Tim soon followed him.

**

* * *

**

The doors to the room where the Gem rested were guarded by seven Snickerdoodle Stormtroopers wielding candy-cane staves. These were the best of Mother Mae-Eye's best, the elitist of her soldiers. And who would dare challenge them except the stupidest of all the Titans.

Okay, so technically Gauntlet and Beast Boy aren't stupid. But they're the least likely to use their brains when choosing their battles—except for maybe Savior when he's in a really bad mood. Either way, the odds were against them.

Especially when their only back-up was the peculiarly-powered pretty-boy Progeny and the military-addled mind of Private Hive.

"There were way too many _p_s in that last sentence," Gauntlet commented as he formed a yellow energy mallet with his Gauntlet. "I shall take it out on those cookie-soldiers over there."

"Dude, I'm not sure that's the best idea," Beast Boy said. "They look kind of dangerous."

"But my shield is nearly indestructible," Gauntlet said. "What could possibly go wrong?"

"You know," Progeny commented stepping forward, "usually when someone says that, the organic waste hits the spinning blades that blow air. Thanks to you, we're going to get stomped."

"Yeah!" Beast Boy said. "Thanks for jinxing us, Rob. You should take your own pamphlets' advice for once."

"If I may, Sergeant," Hive said as he neared the rest of the group, "in an instance such as this, a little optimism is good for the morale of the troops."

Beast Boy glared at him.

"Shutting up, sir."

"Can we forget the jinxing and not jinxing," Progeny said, "I just want to destroy the Indestructible Gem so we can break the Unbreakable Seal and get out of this mad-house that used to be a bank!"

Gauntlet shrugged. "Fine, but I was just hoping to have a little fun first."

Suddenly, the energy field dimmed and the hammer Gauntlet had created transformed into a Thompson machine gun. With a single _ratta-tat-tat_, all seven Snickerdoodle Stormtroopers were laid waste before they could even draw their weapons.

"Let's go!" Rob shouted, as the four boys charged forward.

Beast Boy turned into a massive Triceratops and smashed through the door, and the other three entered behind him, Private Hive and Progeny on his flank and Gauntlet by leaping over him.

Inside the room, there were no guards, and no frills. It was a simple blue 'control-room' esque place, one that seemed more appropriate for an evil overlord than Mother Mae-Eye. The Gem itself was a massive yellow crystal that rested on a pedestal in the centre of the room, a single black spot in the middle giving it the appearance of Mae-Eye's third eye—the vertical one…

It wasn't apparent at first, but as the got near it, the Gauntlet realized the crystal was the size of a large dump truck, which surprised him. "Usually these magical Gem thingies are kind of small, ya know," he said. "It says so in one of my pamphlets that I don't feel like digging for at the moment."

"Sure," Progeny said.

"Let's just smash the thing and get it over with!" Beast Boy insisted, swiping at it with his tail—which was now much larger as he had turned into a Brachiosaurus…. But just before the tail made contact, a red tendril lashed out from the darkened ceiling and stopped the changeling's tail dead in its tracks.

Then it wrapped around the tail and suddenly jerked Beast Boy violently upward, his massive dinosaur wait no more than a simple rag-doll to the red tentacle.

"Well that's not good," said Progeny.

"It is an ambush!" cried Private Hive, as he dived for cover. Another tentacle lashed down and smashed into the floor where he had been standing, and Gauntlet briefly wondered if Hive had minor precognitive powers…

That didn't really matter, as he soon found himself the victim of a tentacle. Shielding himself as best he could, Rob was jerked up into the ceiling, into the darkness in which Beast Boy had vanished…

And found Gar alive up there, fighting off a huge mess of tentacles in his 'Inner Beast' form. Beast Boy leaped across the divide between him and Gauntlet and grabbed the newer Titan. The Beast roared something unintelligible and threw Gauntlet towards the centre of the room…

And as Robert approached, he found himself staring face to face with the ugliest creature he had ever seen… (except for Aberration..) It was a pulsing, monster of many colors, made entirely of various types of candies. Its face was a mess of melted taffy covered in gum-drop warts. Horns of candy corn jutted from its head and its mouth oozed chocolate syrup like fresh blood.

"Well," said Rob. "At least if I'm going to die, it's going to be the danged tastiest death anyone has ever had."

Beast Boy quickly transformed into a gorilla as he struggled against the tendrils. "Robert! Kill it!"

"Oh," Rob said. "Right!"

Thinking quickly—something that Rob found unpleasant when it didn't involve comedy—Gauntlet formed a drill out of his yellow energy that covered his whole body, and slammed into the creature, the energy spinning into him and sending the more fluid parts of it's constitution spraying in all directions.

Unfortunately, the drill wasn't powerful enough to go all the way in, and Gauntlet quickly found he needed a new plan. Making a harness, out of some of the Gauntlet energy, Rob made the rest into a sword and started climbing along the outside of the creature, slicing at anything that stuck out and stabbing anything that moved along its surface.

Angered, the creature started sending tendrils to impale and/or knock Gauntlet away. Rob cut those too. Then he had a case of bad luck, as one of the tendrils lanced at him, Rob sliced at it.

Unfortunately, he hit it dead center, and though it was deflected enough to avoid impaling his face, a portion of the licorice tendril stabbed into his shoulder through an empty place in the shield.

Gauntlet cried out in pain, and fought back, slicing the sharp end of the tentacle off and then jumping out onto it and riding/climbing it to the base of where it was connected to the rest of the beast…

Meanwhile, Beast Boy finally managed to free himself and fell down into the room again…

Which was now full to the brim with Gingerbread soldiers. Hive and Progeny were doing their best to fight them off, but the two were vastly outnumbered and couldn't keep fighting forever.

Beast Boy turned into a falcon and swooped down, tearing off a Gingerbread man's head, then transforming into a giant Tamaranian Scrien Worm, began lashing at the Gingerbread men, eating those that got to close to his fanged orifice—one could scarcely call it a mouth when it looked more like a Sarlaac Pit.

Progeny took a hard blow to the face from a candy cane and crashed next to Hive. Leonard rushed to his aid, throwing his shield into the attacking legions.

"Idiot. You should be throwing that thing at the crystal," Progeny barked at him.

"I never leave any man behind, soldier," Hive returned. His toned lightened. "Plus, I already tried that. Bounded right off without so much as a scratch."

"We are completely hosed, aren't we?" Progeny asked.

"If I must die, I will die fighting!" Hive said, catching his shield as it returned to him and then throwing his body at another wave of soldiers.

Progeny did the same, but with only parts of his body—his hands. The telekinetically controlled fists began tearing through the soldiers, though it wasn't exactly painless for the psychic surgeon….

Beast Boy nodded at the surprising bravery of the HAEYP academy members, then looked back to the darkened ceiling. Whatever Rob was doing had the tentacles mostly occupied. Gar just hoped Gauntlet didn't get himself killed…

Slashing and hacking his way through the maze the tentacles had become, Rob suddenly found that he had lost direction.. How could he beat this thing when it didn't seem to feel anything he had done to it…

Or maybe that's why it was trying to confuse him..

Rob sliced through some more licorice tendrils and made a rope from his Gauntlet energy harness, swinging down towards the head again… or where he thought it was. He was off by a few degrees, and would have had to start over except a tentacle swung down to stop him. He kicked off of that one and redirected himself towards the head of the beast…

The creature sprayed it's chocolate slime at Rob, which annoyed him and delighted him all at once. It also slowed him down. Robert formed a long spear and reached out to impale the monsters head, but his wrist was suddenly wrapped up in a tendril…

Just after thanking God it wasn't the arm that had had its shoulder impaled earlier, a tendril grabbed the free hand and twisted it into a shoulder lock, and then did the same with both Gauntlet's ankles…

Rob swore loudly, a rare occurrence for him.

Unfortunately, the more he struggled, the more tentacles came and wrapped him up, and he had some vague but temporary fears that he was about to have some Japanese adult videos reenacted on him…

No, Mae-Eye wasn't Japanese. That wouldn't happen… He would just be eaten and digested with painful slowness. Which might have actually been worse than what he was thinking of; however, as we have already established, perception is a powerful thing…

Just when Gauntlet thought it couldn't get any worse, the creature opened its mouth wide and he finally got an 'opportunity' to smell the monster's breath.

"AUGH!" he screamed, writhing more within the tentacle cocoon… "How can something made of so much sugary goodness have breath that smells like Doritos and sweaty feet?"

The jewel on the Gauntlet suddenly lit up and began flashing in a pattern that indicated death was imminent…

Or so it thought…

Even as Rob approached the creature's mouth, he used the Gauntlet to form a massive pendulum below him, and began swinging it back and forth. Normally, the Gauntlet constructs were mostly weightless, but he could lend them mass when he needed it. He needed it now.

Rob quickly began swinging the pendulum back and forth, forcing it to build up momentum as it swung. Back and forth… The pendulum got faster and started to pull the tentacles with it, causing the creature to roar at him in confusion and anger. Another spray of chocolate coated Gauntlet…

One more arc and the pendulum had built up more momentum than Gauntlet had expected, and using the pendulum motion, he swung himself so far in one direction, several of the tentacles holding him broke off and lost their grip. "Excellent…"

Gauntlet fell back down, the pendulum dragging the remaining tentacles back into range of the mouth…

"Hey, Kitty Pride!" Gauntlet shouted at the ugly candy beast… "One word for you… '**_SHORYUUUUUKEN!"_**

As the pendulum vanished, a surge of Gauntlet energy surrounded the Titan as he blasted upward at the creature. He formed the energy into a fist and entered the monster's mouth, the rest of the tentacles either letting go from the pain or being melted by the unexpected heat surge…

Gauntlet went so far into the creature that his fist slammed into its brain—a giant Cadbury egg—crushing it… Energy pulsated from the monster, its tentacles flailing wildly… And then they all fell limp…

Down on the floor, Beast Boy and the Hive members smirked when all the now-gray tentacles of licorice fell limply into from the ceiling, dangling like the dead weight they were…

Unfortunately, one of them landed on Progeny's head, which had been separated from the rest of his body for protection. Irony bites.

Hive threw his shield across the room, and it cut through the tentacle that had buried Arturo's head… the thick forest-like maze of tentacles now made it impossible for the shield to return to him. Without it, Private Hive quickly became an easy target, and was tackled by a Gingerbread soldier… And even as he went down fighting, more soldiers than he could count piled atop the private…

Gauntlet, covered in chocolate and all kinds of other tooth-rotting substances, fell from the ceiling… Beast Boy rushed over and caught him in gorilla form, then turned into a ram and smashed a Gingerbread soldier away…

"Rob, you did it! You killed that thing up there."

"I'm aware of that," Rob said. "Now what?"

"We should break the unbreakable Gem," Beast Boy said. "How do we break something like that?"

"Beasts me." Gauntlet shrugged, then looked around. "We'll figure it out. We beat the Whim and **Sorceress**, didn't we?"

Gar frowned. Those two were the last people he needed to be reminded of right now.

"Just figure something out… I've already tried knocking it over, hitting it with blunt trauma. I also tried poison, which in retrospect makes me wonder what I was thinking."

"Hm…" Gauntlet said. "Why don't we try to—"

Before Rob could finish, Beast Boy was suddenly slammed into by a phalanx of Lemondrop Legionnaires and began fighting them off… Rob muttered some curses at them and took off towards the Gem, dodging gum drop grenades and other projectiles… Suddenly, a soldier jumped out from behind some of the hanging dead tentacles and slammed into Gauntlet, knocking him to the side, where he tripped over Progeny's rolling head and slammed face-first into the ground.

Rob rolled over, rubbing his chin, when something metallic caught his eye… The H-shield used by Private Hive…

It was stuck in a dense patch of dead tentacles… "Which means Leonard is defenseless…" Gauntlet mused. "Wait…"

Suddenly, a terrible, wonderful idea jumped into Gauntlet's head..

Quickly forming a massive Rube Goldberg device of Gauntlet energy, Rob began pressing, stretching, and rolling the shield, molding its metals into the proper shape—approximately the shape of a pencil—and then the Gauntlet formed a launching device. Rob stood up, and then darted towards the Indestructible Gem as fast as he could go… Monsters ran at him, trying to stop his diabolical plan… And just as he was about to run into a wall of Lemondrop Legionnaires, Gauntlet dived to the side, landing next to the stack of book-people they'd dragged from the library, and launched the re-worked shield-spear towards the Indestructible Gem. A single Gingerbread soldier leapt into its path, hoping to block it…

But it was no use—the spear went right through its chest, and slammed into the Indestructible Gem with an Unstoppable Force…

And a paradox was suddenly created at the point of impact, a tear in the fabric of reality that began to consume everything in the room. The chocolate syrup oozed from the mouth of the dead candy creature was first, and all those tentacles…

All of Mae-Eye's legions within the room crumbled to the floor, even as Beast Boy and Progeny (well, his head at least) were pulled into the white void… Followed by Private Hive…

Gauntlet, grabbing the books and hoping the paradox vortex would lead him to a pleasant universe where everyone was as much fun to annoy as Noel, let himself go…

Everything went white…

And somewhere, in the void… Gauntlet heard a disturbing sound: laughter.. The laughter of Mother Mae-Eye…

**

* * *

**

After nearly an hour of pounding the invisible barrier, Adam Matthews was ready to give up. His fists were hurting, his arms were aching, and his back hadn't appreciated the constant repetitive motion either. He was barely more than a kid and felt thirty five, and that was an unpleasant feeling, even for a half-demon.

Deciding he'd give it one last try, Adam pistoned his fist back and put 100 percent of his body strength into the blow and slammed his fists into the barrier…

And just as the hit connected…

_**FLASH!**_

The force field sizzled out in a flash, knocking Metatron backward onto his butt. "What?" He blurted. "I did it! I did it! Bliss! I did it!" Adam glanced at the still-sleeping android.

"Oh, right," he said. "Bliss, I just accomplished a very _affirmative_ action there!"

At the sound of the code-word, Viridian came to life, blinking a few times to clear her optical receptors of dust. "Excuse me?" she asked.

"I broke the barrier! I pounded it into non-existence with my bare fists! Worship me, Bliss. WORSHIP ME!"

"For what?"

"Are you deaf, woman? I broke the barrier!"

"Doubtful," Bliss said bluntly. "You likely merely timed your blow to the split second a fluctuation occurred in the field-matrix that generates the shield and temporarily overloaded it. Let us enter before the error is corrected."

Adam frowned, but quickly complied, and Viridian followed. Adam couldn't help but curse the fact that even when she was proven wrong, the android wouldn't admit it. Still, they were in, and they had Titans to save…

**

* * *

**

Two great flashes of light dumped two heaps of reinforcements to the battle in the Atrium. Unfortunately, some of them landed right on top of those already fighting. This, while an effective way to announce one's arrival, is a dreadful tactic in the course of an ongoing conflict.

Raven glanced back to see Robin on top of Starfire and Cyborg sitting on Savior. Gizmo was now buried by Progeny and Private Hive, and Cyborg, Gauntlet, Beast Boy, Mammoth, Angel, and Shimmer had randomly manifested themselves in the atrium as well.

"ROBIN!" Starfire shouted, hugging her easily-crushable boyfriend as gently as she could under the circumstances.

"How'd we get here?" Gauntlet asked. "Last thing I remember was creating a paradox that I thought would destroy the universe…" Rob glanced to his side where Cyborg and Savior were. "Oh, hey Save. What's up?

"Cyborg, get off me!" Savior blurted, doing a shimmer-enhanced push-up to make Vic fall off of him.

"Dude, it wasn't my idea to land on you. How'd we get here?" Cyborg gasped when a gum drop grenade nearly slammed into his face. He rolled over and popped back up, his arm transforming into his sonic cannon and blasting the soldier that had thrown the projectile.

Raven hovered high enough to see the battle field, and saw Rob's net full of books. The net vanished when Rob started smashing things with Gauntlet energy, so Raven moved the books to the pile of everything else that the bank patrons had been turned into… And then she noticed something…

_Guys! _Raven yelled at everyone (telepathically as to make sure they heard it over all the noise of the battle)… _Everyone is here—everyone except for Scalpel!_

Savior, who had formed two more S4s and began hacking things near Raven, answered her. "That's a bad sign. I have a feeling Mae-Eye is about to try something big…"

"Please be wrong," Raven replied, smashing a phalanx of Limedrop Legionnaires with one of the giant meat-hooks her possessed self had ripped off the ceiling earlier…

Then everything changed… The Atrium grew—or perhaps the Titans and Hive members all shrunk—so that the proportions were now closer to a massive football stadium than a bank atrium.

"Not good," Beast Boy observed.

"Ya think?" Gizmo replied.

All of the soldiers the Titans and Hive were fighting began to run towards the far end—towards the door of the bank… where they were joined by more soldiers—thousands of them. And not just the soldiers.

Four massive Licorice Warriors appeared, towering over the battlefield. Three massive AT-AT-esque Mechanical Walker's with huge hot fudge cannons formed, towering hundreds of meters high….

Savior blinked. "Ok, I admit it: that's clever on some level…"

"Quit complementing the bad guys and get ready to break things!" Robin retorted.

In the middle AT-AT, the biggest one, at the top of the open-cockpit head… Stood Scalpel… Nigicalnack Hastionfarlock, impeccably dressed in Victorian military garb. And next to him, the repulsive green face of Mother Mae-Eye… looking strangely pleased with herself.

Noel glanced at Robin. "When we start breaking things, I call her face."

"OH HOLY F—!" a new voice came. Before it could finish the curse, a viridian elbow slammed into its stomach. All the Titans craned their necks back to see Metatron and Viridian standing near a ventilation shaft, which was hanging open.

"You alerted them to our presence," Viridian said. "This was an unwise course of action, Adam Matthews."

"Met!" Beast Boy blurted. "What are you doing here?"

"Viridian?" Robin said curiously. "How did you get in?"

"I knew it!" Gauntlet said. "The paradox I created must have destroyed the Unbreakable Gem." This drew several odd glances.

"PEONS!" shouted a voice… The Titans and Hive turned to see that it was Nigel. "You have defied the will of my dear wife, your loving Mother Mae-Eye. Mother loves you, yet you have spat in her face and shunned her love!"

A tingling chill ran down Robin's spine as Mae-Eye twirled her finger mesmerizing around Nigel's head…

"Mother declares that you will all be punished… with DEATH!"

Suddenly, the perfect formations of Gingerbread solders began marching forward, the giant Licorice Warriors walking solemnly ahead… And the AT-ATs too, Nigel and Mae-Eye in the centre one…

It was nothing sort of an all out war now.

Metatron's stepped forward and observed the massive force coming towards them. It was without a doubt an army baked for one purpose--destruction.

"So she wants to play _Command and Conquer_," said Metatron.

Terra cracked her knuckles. "I'm game."

"But," Raven frowned, "does anybody actually have a plan?"

Starfire chimed in. "Yes! We kick the butt!"

"And inscribe nomenclature," Viridian added.

"And take names!" Gauntlet said, not noticing the redundancy.

"Just like old times," Cyborg said with a smirk.

"Except better," added Beast Boy.

"'War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things'," said Savior, smirking. "'There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.' _But not many_." With that, he formed a pair of S4 blades in his hands.

Robin's eyes narrowed behind his mask until only thin white slits were visible. "Let's finish this."

Robin pointed forward. "TITANS, GO!"

Jinx smiled, and, in front of her old teammates, did the same. Funny, the last time she had given this battle cry was during the Titans first encounter with Mae-Eye. "Hive Five—EAT 'EM ALIVE!"

And forward they charged.


	9. The Plot Plays Twister

**Maternal Instinct  
Chapter Nine: The Plot Plays Twister**

Somewhere in the dark recesses of the bank, a single yellow jewel stood in the middle of a circular room. All around dead grey licorice tentacles hung, destroyed by one teenager's Shoryuken…

And near the base of the gem, a small metal spike poked out. Gauntlet thought he'd created a paradox. He thought wrong… What was really gone on was much more… sinister.

The Gem began to crack, slowly but surely… It wouldn't be much longer now. The Seal Spell would be broken, and then, it would all be over. Mother Mae-Eye would be no more**..  
**

* * *

Like a fleet of dreadnaughts heading into a tempest, the eleven Teen Titans and ten Hive Five-Times-Two members charged ahead into the flood of Mae-Eye's soldiers. They were out numbered by double digits; it didn't matter. One Titan could take down a hundred Gingerbread soldiers. A few could take down thousands alone. The Hive members similarly outclassed their cookie-based opponents. Even Angel and Shimmer proved more than a match for the Gingerbread soldiers. 

Those were not the problem, they were just a nuisance.

A nuisance that Tim Drake and Noel Collins were currently tearing through to get to the true threats—the AT-ATs and Licorice Warriors. Them, and Nigel. That one of their own was still with Mae-Eye was bad enough. That he was a military man, believed himself to be Mae-Eye's husband, and was clad in gaudy Victorian clothing just made it worse.

"I hope you didn't happen to kill anyone while we were separated," Robin barked, punching his way through a duo of Limedrop Legionnaires before drawing his bo-staff and stabbing it through a Sugarcookie Commando.

Savior, annoyed by Robin's snarky attitude, jumped over an attacking soldier and let its candy cane stave hook Robin's leg and pull him down before killing the soldier and helping Robin up. "You've got a real attitude problem, you know that?"

Robin shot a glance at him. "So I've been told. Mostly by you. But Savior, you've not been the same since Slade broke your mind. You've been getting more and more violent and it has to stop before you go overboard."

"Look who's talking!" Savior blurted, jump-kicking at Robin. Tim ducked in time for the kick to fly over his head and slam into the Oreo Ogre behind him, just as intended. Savior then lopped the Ogre's head off with an S4. "The Joker once broke your mind just like Slade broke mine. In another universe, you killed him for it!"

Robin bashed another group of soldiers. "Savior, you know me. I'm not _that_ Tim Drake."

"Yeah, and I'm not Christmas!" Noel shot back, hitting a second Oreo Ogre, bringing it down. "And I never will be."

Robin nodded as both came to a mutual understanding that their little co-leader spat would have to wait.

"So, Boy Wonder, what's the plan now?" Savior shimmer-leapt over an attacking Snickerdoodle Specialist and sliced him in half with an S4 blade. Another soldier rushed at him with a candy cane, but Savior blocked it, then parried and cut him across the midsection.

"We have to focus on getting Scalpel jarred out of his brainwashing," Robin said. "He's strong enough himself to take down the AT-ATs for us." Robin deflected a candy cane with his bo-staff and delivered a powerful kick to the soldier's face, shattering it.

"So I'm not the only one who noticed the resemblance," Savior smirked, tearing through another group of soldier's with his S4s.

Three more came up behind Robin, and he quickly reversed his staff, slamming it into the ground and using it as an axis to swing around and take out all three, then using a low sweep as soon as he landed to trip up several more behind them.

"Okay, but that's easier said than done," Savior said, then briefly recounted the bonk-proofing that Mae-Eye had given to Terra. "If I can force him to remember Sophie, we might be able to jar him out of it."

"And just how do you plan to do that. By the way, do you have any projectile weapons? I'm empty."

A soldier hit Savior in the gut, and he returned the blow harder, and grimaced. "You could borrow Adam's piece," he said.

Robin narrowed his eyes. "Not my style, Savior. You know that. Besides, I doubt a 9mm will do much good against these things."

Savior decapitated a third Ogre. "Point taken. I've been saving this for a rainy day; never thought you'd be the one to break it in."

"Huh?" Robin looked back to see Noel hand him a small staff with twin scythe blades on the end of it.

"Press the button on the handle to key it to your vitals. It will work like a boomerang."

Tim nodded. "Where did you get this?"

"Wayne Tech makes it. I hid the purchase in Beast Boy's tofu budget. It's…"

Robin cut him off. "Bigger than I'd think."

"Yeah. So, what is the plan then?" Noel asked finally.

"You go after Scalpel, try and jar his memory. I'll take your toy and try to stop those Licorice Warriors."

Savior nodded. "Titans Go?"

"Of course. And Savoir…"

Noel turned back. "Yes?"

"Consider your demotion rescinded."

Noel smirked. "I'd already forgotten about it.**"  
**

* * *

Jinx and Billy Numerous were respectively the brain and nerve center of the Hive Five's war machine. Jinx gave the orders, and Billy relayed them via his ability to be in many places at once. Jinx was satisfied with this, for now, though she knew it couldn't be too long before the orders got disastrously misinterpreted between one Billy and the next. Jinx smirked. Savior had always said wars were mass psychosis. It was time to put that theory to the test. 

The pink haired charmer turned to the Billy next to her. "Angel and Gizmo need to grab any projectiles they can and stay airborne. Mae-Eye doesn't have anything that can fly on her side…"

Just then, a massive burst of bubbling-hot maple syrup exploded from one of the graham cracker AT-ATs, almost hitting Jinx and Billy1, but barely missing. "Did you get that?" she asked her Billy.

"The order has been ree_eeee_-layed," he said, struggling to take down a Gingerbread Soldier. "Whut now?"

"Baran and Donavon," Jinx said, then blasted a group of soldiers with her Hex Blasts. "Tell them both to head for that nearest AT-AT and take it down. Kid Wykkid can teleport there via its own shadow, right?"

"Yer a'askin' me?" Billy1 said incredulously. "I reckon so." The Billy turned and relayed the order to another Billy, who sent it on down the line.

"Good enough for now," Jinx said. "Everyone else just needs to keep on doing what they're doing."**  
**

* * *

Had Jinx known exactly what Private Hive was doing, she might have rethought her statement. What he was doing was trying to stay alive. His personal Billy had been melted by the AT-AT, and then he'd been knocked down by a Snickerdoodle Stormtrooper. When he looked up, there was an Oreo Ogre smashing down at him with a giant lollipop. 

Leonard rolled out of the way, but the Ogre kept coming, striking the ground where he had been whenever the Private moved.

"Oh, I wish I still had my shield," he whined, even as the Ogre attacked him again.

Suddenly, a large green raptor dropped in and smashed the Ogre, then turned back in to Beast Boy. "Dude, a real soldier doesn't need to hide behind a shield. Just fight!"

Private Hive stood up and glared at him, even as Beast Boy took out a Gingerbread Soldier with his fist, grabbing its gumdrop grenades. "Take these," he said. "And whatever else you can find. Just start smashing stuff, and quit acting like a drill sergeant jerk!"

Leonard took the grenades and the giant sucker the Ogre had tried to clobber him. "I will show you, cadet. I'm not to be insulted by those I outrank!"

Shaking his head with frustration, Beast Boy transformed into a rhino and charged away towards a group of soldiers, leaving Leonard alone.

Private Hive stood up, placed the grenades on his belt, and leveled the sucker in his hands. He'd show that little grass stain**!  
**

* * *

Near the legs of one of the Graham AT-ATs, a black blur flickered out from the shadows; Mammoth and Kid Wykkid appeared, preparing to attack the sugar-filled death machine. 

Suddenly, a blue and white blur crashed into the nearest foot, causing Mammoth and Wykkid to scatter. Graham exploded from it into a cloud of dust, and when it cleared.. Cyborg sat in the hole his body had made in the AT-AT's foot.

"Oh, hiyah, fellas," Cyborg said, shrugging off his disorientation. "That was unexpected."

"What are you doing here?" Mammoth barked at him.

Cyborg stood up and dusted himself off. "Starfire threw me over here to take this thing down," he said, indicating the AT-AT. "I guess you two can help."

"Ha!" Mammoth pushed Cyborg out of the way and charged forward. "Maybe _you'll_ be the one helping _us_!" Mammoth started to climb the AT-ATs massive leg; as he climbed he began muttering, "Good fer'nothin' Titan."

Cyborg glanced at Kid Wykkid, who just shrugged.

"Alright then," Cyborg said. "How about I send you up top and you take out the driver?"

Again, Donavon just shrugged.

"I suppose that's a yes," Cyborg said, grabbing the young shadow master. "I lifted a building once, so you should be no problem…" And with that, Cyborg hurled Kid Wykkid into the air, far past Mammoth, all the way to the top of the AT-AT, where he twisted in the air and landed with a crunch, the graham-cracker surface of the vehicle breaking under his feet. Immediately, he saw on of the drivers leave the control centre.

Kid Wykkid's eyes widened when he saw that the driver was a Snickerdoodle Samurai, his sharpened rock-candy katana looking as though it could slice through polished diamond.

He charged at him, his shadow-blades armed and dangerous…

But down below, Cyborg saw something else. He had just begun blasting the leg joints of the AT-AT when it happened, and since he had only been doing cosmetic damage anyway, he immediately stopped.

Because Scalpel was on the move. He had seen Kid Wykkid land on top of the AT-AT and leapt from his own towards that one… And Cyborg knew that the kid was no match for an angry Blacktrinian…

Dashing out from under the legs of the walker, Cyborg charged his sonic cannon as high as he could get it and still get the shot off in time, then blasted. The blue-white energy beam of sound so compressed it glowed arced out and slammed into the leaping Blacktrinian in mid-flight, sending him flying across the Atrium… Towards the rest of the Titans and Hive members.

"I hope he doesn't land near Savior," Cyborg worried aloud. And then he thought of Metatron's gun… And the Blacktrinian weakness to bullets.

"Or worse… Adam."**  
**

* * *

At that moment, Adam was diving into a pile of Gingerbread Soldiers, tearing them apart with his demon strength and speed. Claws lashed out, and Metatron thought of spreading his wings, but decided they'd likely just get punctured if he did, in all the chaos and what not. 

Three anti-tank rounds blasted loudly near him, and he turned to see Viridian, wielding the big gun over her shoulder. Metatron smiled, realizing that this android alone could level the playing field a lot.

Suddenly, Metatron was hit in the back with a lollipop mallet and knocked forward. He rolled as he landed and turned as he got up, blasting the attacking cookie trooper with a burst of yellow fire. His foe disintegrated under the heat of his blast, and Metatron picked up the lollypop to use for himself.

He ran into a group of soldiers, and began going to town like that guy from Project HAMMER, breaking every one of them he could find with his sucker of death…

Until another burst from one of the AT-AT's syrup cannons doused the part-demon teen in a glob of scalding hot maple syrup. Thankfully, Met's resistance to heat allowed him to manage not to die as he was hit, but it sent him flying and then rolling backwards.

Met got up covered in sticky syrup. He immediately burnt as much off of him as he could with his yellow fire, and started gunning for the nearest enemies. Sure, it was the big walker-thing that had blasted him, but it was dangerous-looking and far away. Metatron proffered to take his anger out on things that probably wouldn't be able to kill him.

He drew his gun and unloaded three rounds into a nearby Oreo Ogre, before deciding it was futile…

Then it occurred to him that Scalpel was still on the side of the enemies.

And Blacktrinians were weak against bullets… A horrible thought of murder crossed his mind, and he forced it out. "I'm not a monster!" He barked at himself, even as he sliced up the Oreo Ogre that had just taken three rounds.

Another anti-tank round echoed out from Viridian's rifle; nearby, the head of a Licorice Warrior exploded into a million tiny chunks of candy confetti.

This gave Metatron an idea… Darting over to where Bliss was, he flipped his gun over and held it by the barrel. He extended it towards the android, even as she switched to her machine gun and mowed down a line of Gingerbread Soldiers.

"What is this for?" she asked him. "I already have firearms far superior to that one."

Metatron frowned. "I know that, Bliss, but if I have it, I might end up using it on Scalpel. You know how I am."

Bliss smashed Adam over the shoulder, forcing him down even as she brought her machine gun around and tore through an attacking line of Soldiers. "You are often impulsive and reckless, acting on emotion rather than tactical analysis of the situation."

"Right, all that stuff," Adam said, rubbing his bruised trapezius muscle. "It's got twelve rounds left in it. I want you to hold on to it and only use it on Nigel as a last resort."

More machine gun rounds exploded from Bliss' gun, deafening the young man further. He still managed to hear her when she next spoke. "Define last resort."

"Only if he's like, disabled everyone else or if we can't make him snap out of his brainwashing. For crying out loud, Bliss, use that brain of yours—you'll know when it is last resort time!"

"Acknowledged," Bliss said, with a tinge of uncertainty in her voice. (Adam thought it strange, but then again, uncertainty was a scientific principle if you asked Heisenberg. Maybe it wasn't an emotion so much as it was a state of mind.)

Regardless, she took the gun and attached it to a magnetic clamp at her waist, then resumed shooting everything that moved.

Well, except Adam.**  
**

* * *

Even as Private HIVE and INSTIGATOR blasted their way through a barely-averted flank attack by the cookie army, Gauntlet collapsed onto his knees, then fell onto his back, breathing hard. 

The wound in his shoulder hadn't gotten any better as the fight got rougher, and now, he was down for the count. He'd lost too much blood, and nobody noticed since his shirt was completely covered in vaguely reddish chocolate…

Nobody except Raven, at least.

It was a good thing she was actually someone who could do something about it. "Robert! Are you alright?" Raven blurted, bending over to find his chocolate coated shirt also partly soaked in blood.

"Idiot!" she hissed. "Why didn't you tell anyone you were wounded?"

Gauntlet muttered something about Miho from _Sin City _getting into a fight with his mother…

Completely delirious. Well, even more so than Robert normally was. Raven sighed, and began doing what she could to draw his pain into her body and close the wound. Savior still held a grudge for what had happened during the Old One's bunker debacle shortly after Rob had joined the team, but Raven refused to hold it against him. Gauntlet may have been an idiot, but he'd done the best he could at the time.

The wound went all the way through his shoulder, Raven realized as the pain seeped in. What was he thinking not getting that looked at immediately. "Idiot!"

"I didn't know you cared, Rae," Rob muttered, still lightheaded. "How about a kiss to make it better too?"

"You know, I could be doing all kinds of nasty things to you with this spell," she said.

Rob nodded, still not quite all there, but having got the point. "I'll be quiet."

After letting the pain dissipate from her shoulder, the Azarathian spoke again. "By the way…"

Raven trailed off, then placed her hands over the Gauntlet, which had retracted into its dormant ring form. "**_Xif Ruoy setholc_**!"

A flash of light pulsated out from the ring, even as the Gauntlet and dark energies mixed together, the liquid metal whirling in a tornado allover Robert's body, until suddenly his clothes were pristine, and the Gauntlet was back to normal, now covering not just his forearm, but up to his shoulder—the result of the extra energy from Raven.

"What was this all about?" he asked her.

Raven frowned. "Robert, we need _everyone_ at their best for this. You're no exception, and you're also of no use to anyone bleeding all over the floor. Now go break things."

"_Aye, Aye, moan sheri_," Robert said in a horrible French accent, even as he got back to his feat. "And now, for something completely different."

Gauntlet energy surrounded the young man, forming two swords in both his hands and several more hands below those. Also with swords. Robert ran towards a group of soldiers, revitalized and still somewhat delirious from the blood loss.

Raven sweatdropped. "Well, he's less likely to get himself killed this way than he is lying on the ground painting the floor red."

Suddenly, the nearest AT-AT blasted another huge glob of syrup towards the Titans, and Raven moved into action quickly, using her powers to deflect the sugary glob of death away from the sentient beings in the Atrium towards more of Mae-Eye's soldiers…

Nevertheless, they kept on coming—this would be a long fight.**  
**

* * *

It wouldn't be much longer now… 

The cracks in the unbreakable gem were spreading. Soon it would shatter… Soon it would all be over! Revenge and supreme power…

Soon.. Very soon**.  
**

* * *

Robin swung down from the top of the Licorice Warrior's head, dodging the creature's eyebeams as he went… Light flashed out and nearly severed the cord of his only remaining grapple. But he managed to get away and land on top of one of the ruined columns that held up the Atrium ceiling. 

Thankfully only two of the sixteen had been damaged. Still, if the battle kept on, and all the columns fell, the bank might collapse. Which just added more urgency to finishing this fight. An urgency constantly frustrated by the sheer size of Mae-Eye's army…

Robin cursed, and jumped as the Licorice Warrior slashed at him with a huge candy tentacle. The Warrior let out a strange eerie growl and tried hitting the bottom of the column…

It didn't give, but Robin nearly fell over from the impact.

He glowered angrily at the Licorice Warrior, and the creature returned his glare with the red glowing orbs that it called its eyes. Robin dived as the thing smashed at the column again, but was knocked away from his intended landing area by the creature's fist.

Angered, Robin fired his bat-grapple at the first thing his eye's centered on…

The line lanced out and struck the Licorice Warrior directly in the eye… And it was immediately clear Robin had done something right. The red orb shattered, and the creature jerked back, in pain and apparently paralyzed by the attack, and slung Robin straight up via the whip-like motion of the bat-grapple line. Robin let go of the grapple and pulled out the Smart Scythe that Noel had given him, using it to clamp onto the hole in the wall that Terra had made in the president's office…

He glanced down at the Licorice Warrior, and realized he'd just discovered weakness, a flaw in the design. The creature's head was lolled back, not dead, but stunned. Light moved along the licorice lines, apparently transferring energy back into that eye—from the other eye.

Why would the witch make the only power sources external? Then again, the whole concept of a witch who lived in a pie and fed pies to youngsters so she could absorb their love and then eat them was out there enough that it sort of numbed you to such odd questions.

Robin decided to take advantage of the situation, kicking off the wall and backflipping down to the Warrior's head. Without a second thought, he jumped off and hurled the smart scythe into the creature's eye.

The second eye also shattered, and the Warrior fell to the ground, crushing part of Mae-Eye's army… Even as Robin landed on top of an Oreo Ogre, breaking his fall and shattering the creature.

He simply held out his hand, and the smart scythe came sailing back into it. "I'm going to have to ask Bruce about getting me one of these," Tim said to himself.

Pulling out his Titan Com, Tim immediately contacted everyone within earshot and told them what he had just discovered if they hadn't already heard. The tide, it seemed, was beginning to turn.**  
**

* * *

Savior was in big trouble. Scalpel, his target, had landed right behind him and to his left. This was bad because on average, Scalpel tended to be fairly quick. Savior also could be quick, but he was exhausted, and it took every ounce of will power he had to spin around and throw up a set of S4 blades to block the incoming claw attack from the Blacktrinian. 

Clearly, Nigel was unhappy with having been made into a projectile by Cyborg, and was taking his frustrations out on the nearest bright blue and white target—Noel, in this case. Savior blocked two more vicious blows from Scalpel's claws before the Victorian-clad brainwash victim drew his spare glaive and began trying to eviscerate the sixth Titan from a distance.

Savior backpedaled, leaping atop an Oreo Ogre's head and letting Scalpel take it out for him before landing behind the alien and grabbing him around the shoulders and knees in a shimmer cocoon, holding with enough force—he hoped—to keep anything sharp away from the strands. Much to his relief, the lock he put Nigel in caused the Glaive to clang to the floor.

"Let go of me!" the Blacktrinian snarled. "I'm here to punish you in the name of your Mother!"

"Shut up, Nigel! That witch isn't our mother, not yours and _certainly_ not mine. You're Nigel Hastings of Blacktrinia. You're not the kind to be brainwashed!"

"The only one brainwashed here is you!" Scalpel bellowed. "Mae-Eye is my _wife_… She is _your_ mother, stupid child!" Nigel hurled himself and Noel into the air nearly ten feet and falling so that Savior landed on his back and he landed atop Savior.

Noel cursed, gritting his teeth as the weight and shock of the blow coursed off of him. Risking his concentration, Savior managed to slide a strand of shimmer into his massive pointy ear as he rolled over top and tried to pin Scalpel down. All the while, he bringing up hidden memories, those buried by Mae-Eye's magic.

"Sophie! Remember her? Your girlfriend, your lover?" He forced images of the coroner into the Blacktrinian's brain.

"Lies!" Scalpel protested. "My only lover is your dear Mother!"

"No," Noel muttered, "that's just gross."

Scalpel writhed, Noel's aching body unable to resists, and managed to dig a claw barely into the shimmer. It was enough, though, to force Savior off of him.

Scalpel slashed out with his claws, sheering the fabric of Noel's jacket in several places, then attacking again with a powerful punch. Savior barely managed to make a shimmer barrier in time to prevent his organs from being rearranged inside him, but was sent flying back several feet, as he did not have time to form a proper anchor.

Then, Savior noticed something… from the tattered remains of his jacket a small billfold had fallen.

Savior didn't carry any significant money with him out on the job, and never in such an obvious place. No, this was something he carried for other reasons—interrogations, worst case scenarios… the usual. He dived for it, only to be kicked away by Nigel, who followed up with another vicious assault that Savior tried to shimmer-spring over. Unfortunately, Blacktrinians also have powerful legs, and Scalpel met Noel in the air…

Just as Savior had expected. Using the rubber band motion of the Shimmer strand he'd left in the ground, Noel jerked himself down and away from Nigel's attack, and rolled across the ground, picking up the wallet. He unfurled it…

To reveal an assortment of pictures, heroes and villains, allies and enemies all alike. Missing persons, too, though those he had little hope for and took more out of courtesy to the family than expectation that they'd be any help…

But the one he was looking for had significance to all the Titans, except maybe Jinx. It was a simple photo of Sophie, taken by Scalpel when he was first learning how to use Earth cameras—a gorgeous, if amateurish, photo by any standard… It had to work, because Savior was out of better ideas and the Blacktrinian cranium was way too strong for the bonk-treatment.

Diving back towards him with an S4 blade ready to defend, Savior shoulder slammed the alien in the equivalent of a human solar plexus, and staggered him back a bit. Nigel roared and slashed down with his claws, but Savior was able to defend with the S4 and slide a shimmer strand into the alien's ear once again, doing all he could to disable the creature's motor functions..

Nigel's wild struggling subsided into a mild twitching, and Savior shoved him against the leg of one of the Graham Cracker AT-ATs, using the shimmer to lift the 400lb metal-clad alien off the ground by a few inches. Then he shoved the photo of Sophie Matthews in the Blacktrinian's face.

"Get that vile rag away from me, mortal!" Nigel demanded, trying to avert his eyes away from the photo. He gnashed his teeth at the shimmer strands, hoping to cut them, but Savior was too fast.

"Remember her!" he demanded, forcing Nigel to look at the photograph. "She's your girlfriend, your life-mate. She took you in when the rest of the world thought you were a monster! _That _is love! Not this stupid magical fake crap Mother Mae-Eye gives you!"

"No…" Scalpel muttered, clearly fighting something within himself. And Savior saw it, and pushed all the harder on his brain, forcing the memories of Sophie to rise to the forefront.

"Yes. Remember who you are, Nigel! You're not that stupid witch's husband…"

"YES… I…" Nigel started scream, almost forcing Noel out of his mind. But Savior wasn't so easily daunted, and forced the photo even closer to Scalpel's face.

"Remember, or the next body she prepares for burial will be _yours!" _Savior's eyes reflected the intensity of his words.

Nigel responded by biting his tongue and spitting the blood onto the photo… It immediately caught fire and Savior dropped it… Even as a horror spread across Nigel's face. "No… Soph…ie…"

"That's right. You just destroyed the first photo you ever took of her!" Savior shouted.

"NO!" Nigel bellowed, and with a feral roar, he threw Savior away from him, nicking the shimmer with his claws. Savior landed hard, gritting his teeth from the pain of the landing and the worse pain of the shimmer being cut. Further pain followed as Nigel's roar got louder and louder, until the Blacktrinian collapsed to his knees, breathing heavily…

Groggily, Savior got up and staggered over to the alien, forming an S4 in preparation for the worst… With Nigel this mad, he'd have probably an eight of a second where he could kill the alien or die himself. And considering how bad Noel was feeling, he didn't think he would be able to react that quickly.

But it seemed fate was on his side today, as Nigel immediately tore off the Victorian petticoat he was wearing, rage hissing through his teeth… But the hissing subsided as he stood up.

Noel was shocked to see that Nigel was now a picture of serenity on the outside, but with an intense well of emotion—all of it anger—just below the surface.

Calmly, Scalpel spoke. "She attacked a bank full of innocent people, turned the Titans against each other, and tried to steal me away from Sophie—to make me her husband." Even more calmly the Blacktrinian warrior casually stepped forward, brushing Noel aside. "There will be violence."

And with that, the alien ran forward and hurled himself skyward…**  
**

* * *

Gizmo and Starfire flew back to back, strafing the approaching gingerbread forces, even as the heavy hitters INSTIGATOR and the hot-syrup drenched Metatron pushed forward, blasting and smashing everything that came near them. Raven hurled the meat hooks her evil self had un-lodged, tearing through the Oreo Ogres. 

Shimmer and Angel tag teamed the Snickerdoodle Stormtroopers—Shimmer transmuted bits of cookie-soldier into explosive substances and threw them up to Angel, who then dropped them on platoons of the enemy….

Billy Numerous had single-handedly (well, you know) brought down a Licorice Warrior, and Jinx had finished it off, following Robin's advice to take out the eyes….

And still the HIVE and Titans were losing ground, being pushed back by the sugar-coated onslaught towards the civilians they were trying to protect. Metatron dived in front of Viridian while she was reloading and blasted away her attackers with his golden fire. "Hey, Bliss, didn't you say something about making your tank form portable?"

"Affirmative," Viridian responded. "I was able to devise a way to negate its mass and volume until needed. Unfortunately, I have yet to determine away to bring it back to normal size. So it is worthless at the moment. Perhaps Dr. Ray Parker can be of assistance."

"Just great," Adam muttered, blasting away at another set of attackers. Viridian stepped forward and blasted a line of soldiers with her machine gun. "And how many more rounds do you have of that?" he asked.

"One hundred thirty," answered Viridian without emotion.

"How many does one burst consume?" Adam asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Fifteen," came the somber reply. She fired another round into the attacking soldiers. "One hundred fifteen." Two more bursts reduced her remaining armament to eighty-five. She'd be out soon, and then she'd be in trouble.

Suddenly, Gizmo flew overhead and blasted several more enemies. "Crud! They just keep on coming. No end to these snot heads!" The exhaustion in is voice was obvious. A strange mechanical sound caught Metatron's attention, and he looked up to see Gizmo draw yet another weapon from his nullspace backpack.

A light bulb appeared above Adam's head. Even as Gizmo began shooting again, Metatron jumped up on his shoulders, forcing them both to fall to the ground. "What the snot are you doing you kludge-eating Titan?"

"Sorry dude, I need this thing!" Adam ripped the backpack off Gizmo's back and turned around handing it towards the android. "Viridian! Here, this thing knows how to make things bigger again!"

Casting a calculatedly skeptical glare at Adam, Viridan scanned the device before trying to interface with it. Then she turned to Gizmo. "Your anti-hacking systems leave much to be desired, Mikron."

"You snot-eating android!" he screamed diving at her. She grabbed him out of the air by the scruff of his shirt and threw him towards Raven or Starfire or somebody soft. Viridian nodded as the pack was integrated into her system.

" Thank you, Adam Matthews."

"Alright! Now you have another reason you have to worship me!" Met celebrated. "Because I rule!"

Bliss ignored him, stepping forward even as her body vanished in a flash of light and was replaced by her massive tank-form. Heavy artillery didn't even begin to describe it. In her hands were a massive chain-gun and a massive rail-gun, and an artillery cannon rested on her right shoulder. Her feet had been replaced by two huge mechanical 'boots' with tank treads on the side.

"Holy kludge!" Gizmo intoned from where he was, before he went back to blasting soldiers…

Meanwhile Viridian Mark II rolled forward, tearing swaths of destruction through the hordes of cookie soldiers…

The die was cast, the tide was turning…

Unfortunately, evil was about to get some reinforcements.**  
**

* * *

Scalpel bounded off the side of the Graham AT-AT he'd just eviscerated and landed atop the one where Mother Mae-Eye rested, where he had once been at her side. 

"Witch," he said with a calm, dangerous tone in his voice. "End this sorry facsimile of war now. You have no idea what real war is." Scalpel would not let his rage make him a monster. He'd take the high road—and_ then_ beat the stuffingout of her.

"Oh, so it seems the game is up," the witch sighed. "Well, it was fun while it lasted… But it will all be over soon… And I do mean _all!" _Mae-Eye broke out into a chaotic fit of laughter, and Scalpel was unable to contain himself. He threw his body at the witch feet first, kicking her from her perch atop the AT-AT and landing atop her massive nose. He dug into her flesh with his feet before bounding off and grabbing the Lollipop Mallet of a fallen soldier, then turning and smashing the recovering Mae-Eye over the head.

"You insolent brat!" she shouted, blasting the Titan with a burst of blue magic. Scalpel, too mad to care, leapt over the attack and slammed the mallet into the witch's face again, sending her careening across the atrium towards the exist…

Scalpel charged again, Titans in the distance gasping as he delivered blow after crushing blow to the green three-eyed witch. Blue blood leaked from her mouth, nose, and several new egress points the beating had crated by the time Scalpel was done. "That was for Sophie!" Nigel growled at her. "This is for the civilians you've tried to dominate!" He raised the mallet again…**  
**

* * *

At that very moment, the Unbreakable Gem shattered into a million tiny jewel shards. 

Inu-Yasha's ears perked up, but then he was hit by Sango's giant boomerang and told to sit by Kagome._  
_

_Not those kind of shards, moron!_

This has been your random moment of the day. We now return you to _Maternal Instinct_.

* * *

Mother Mae-Eye began to glow before Scalpel's attack reached her, and she lanced her hand out as he swung, stopping him in his tracks. A blast of blue magic sent the alien flying backwards thirty feet. 

And then came the laughing; the witch's infernal laugh echoed throughout the atrium, and then deepened to a voice terribly unlike her own…

"I suppose I have you, most of all, Robert Candide, to thank for this!"

Raven glanced at Gauntlet. "What did you _do!_"

"What?" Rob blurted, holding up his hands defensively. "I didn't do nothin'!"

"Which means you did _something_," Raven snapped. "What did you do!"

"Don't worry your precious little heads," Mother Mae-Eye intoned, as if she could read the thoughts of everyone in the bank. "I will explain… You see, the Unbreakable Gem was not to keep you all in the bank, though it helped serve that function dutifully. Its true purpose was to keep me—the true me—in!"

She chortled again, only angering Scalpel and Savior even more.

"When your Titan, the so-called Gauntlet, brought about the destruction of the Gem, it was only matter of time before the spell that has bound me for nearly one thousand years to be broken!"

Nigel swore. What was happening now?

Savior swore. What had Robert done _now?_

Gauntlet swore. _What is Savior going to do to me now?_

Even as the HIVE and Titans anticipated the worst, the three eyes of Mother Mae-Eye vanished, the hideous green visage melted away. What stood in her place at first made the Titans wonder if the Sorceress hadn't gotten a really good makeover. She stood twelve feet tall and hovered over the bank's battlefield, clad in armor and Victorian feathers. A shock of red hair rested on her head now, and her face was pail white. She was simultaneously attractive and repulsive…. She _radiated_ evil.

And her voice was different. "I am the Queen of Fables!" she announced. "My imprisonment of one-hundred decades as at last come to an end, and the earth shall tremble as I unleash my rule onto the planet!"

And in a burst of energy, the bank suddenly shattered, its pieces soaring into the atmosphere, leaving the Titans, HIVE, and civilians sprawled across the floor of what had once been the atrium…

Savior goggled when he realized the civilians had all returned to their normal forms, as if whatever the so-called Queen of Fables planned now had nothing to do with the designs of Mother Mae-Eye

Robin and Raven immediately began getting them to clear the area…

And the newly-rechristened Queen of Fables hovered above the city, drawing the magic of fiction itself into her. _It is _so_ good to be back._

* * *

"This threat is more than we can handle," Robin observed… "We're going to need help." 

Even as Raven got the last of the civilians clear of the bank, it quickly became clear that no place was safe. The skies over Jump City darkened once more. It was as though the End of Metal or Final Night was repeating itself…

"Ask and ye shall receive," came a familiar voice.

Robin turned, and to his surprise found himself at a loss for words.

"Robin," said Superman. "Batman sends his regards, but he couldn't make it."

The Man of Steel was there. But not just him. With him were the last assortment of heroes he had expected ever seeing together: Power Girl, Guy Gardner, Grace Choi, and Jessie Quick.

"Jessie Quick?" Gauntlet blurted. "Who invited her! I bet **_I_** have a bigger fan-base than she does?"

Jessie frowned at him. "Long story," she said, quickly repairing the fourth wall with her super-speed power. "I'll have Wally explain it later."

"Speaking of explanations, I assume you'll explain to us _what_ exactly is going on," Power Girl said as she floated near the Titans co-leaders.

Robin shrugged… "Well…"

"Yeah, about that…" Savior trailed off…

"Ah, who needs an explanation?" Guy Gardner, one of Earth's five Green Lanterns blurted. "Evil witch, really bad. We smash her up and go home. Simple."

Robin trailed off. "As much as I hate to say this, Guy is right. Titans, move out!"

Jinx turned to see her former allies sneaking away from the battle field… "You coming with us, Llarenes," asked Billy Numerous.

She hung her head and sighed. "Go on. I'm needed here."

"Suit yourself!" Gizmo shouted. "Let's go!" The HIVE turned and ran off…

Right into Savior. The expression on is face let them know in an instant he was dead serious. "We really need to _talk._"


	10. Raven and the Queen

**Maternal Instinct  
Chapter Ten: Raven and the Queen**

_It had been the fiercest of duels between the two. Both champions of magic; different schools, but equal, it seemed, in discipline, in power. And then he'd spoken those accursed words and transformed himself into a demon._

_The battle had raged on, demon versus witch in a magical battle that rivaled the final clash between Rorek and the dread dragon Malchior._

_And in the end, it had fallen to a stalemate. Sorcerer and Queen, locked in a struggle from which neither of them would relent._

_And then, the sorcerer had done something. Around his neck, there had rested a tiny gem, an amethyst stone that sparkled in the setting sun. And while the witch's arms were locked with the sorcerer's mind, his own hand pressed the gem to her forehead, and he spoke._

_"It is clear that we rival each other in power," said the man. "Yea, though I be both man and demon, I feel that you possess far more power than even you are aware of thyself. For this reason, I must seal you with this Unshatterable Gem for all eternity."_

_And the man had gone on to cast a spell of sealing._

_"Think wisely, vile witch, for you shall retain the form of the monstrous tales that you cherish most; far too long have you tormented the land with all these fictions that you bring to life. From now on, one and one alone you must abide by, live, and become."_

_As she thought of the tale of the wicked witch who had attempted to fatten and eat Hansel and Gretel, the Queen of Fables smiled. This would do, until she could escape. Henceforth, she would be called Mother Mae-Eye by all, and they would love her until the day she consumed them for their souls._

_As much of her mind vanished, unconscious and dormant inside the Gem, she looked up and asked the man a simple question._

_"Good wizard, tell me thy name," she said. "For when this curse is over I shall seek out your descendants with my wrath and torment them in vengeance."_

_The man gave her an arrogant smile, and instantly she hated him. He spoke: "Lady of darkness, I tell you my name because I may bear no descendants. I am Jason Blood, bound to the demon Etrigan by Merlin the Arch Wizard. I shall live as long as the world itself does. Should you ever escape, your vengeance will be directed at me and me alone. Now vanish, fiend. This day is the end of you."_

* * *

Mother Mae-Eye—no, the Queen of Fables—snapped out of her reverie. The past was long behind her, and she truthfully no longer cared of the man Jason Blood or his progeny. She would get to him in time, surely. But for now, she had one goal and only one—to conquer Jump City. 

And from there, the whole world would fall to her magic.

Reaching out into the ethereal plane that rested just below the surface of sight and sound, the Queen of Fables began to summon her tried and true minions from their resting places—the Pirates led by Captain Hook, and their arch foe Peter Pan and his Lost Boys. The Giant at the top of Jack's beanstalk. The wolf that had consumed the flesh of Red Riding Hood.

And of course, thousands and thousands of gingerbread soldiers.

And as she reached farther, it immediately became clear that the World of Fables had expanded greatly since her imprisonment. It would take some effort, but to bring in some invaluable new allies to her cause… it would be worth it to say the least.

And so she began, ogres and trolls and orcs. Dark Elves and zombies, vampires and werewolves all began to emerge from their places in folklore and spew into the world of reality.

And all were under her direct control. "They shall once again fear me and tremble at my name!" The Queen of Fables shouted, almost laughing in glee. "Burn! Pillage! Destroy!**  
**

* * *

For the uninitiated, the new players. 

**Superman** – Clark Kent, the Man of Steel, the Last Son of Krypton. If I need to say anymore, then there's something wrong with you!

**Power Girl** – Karen Starr, Superman's cousin from a destroyed parallel universe.

**Green Lantern** – Guy Gardner, a back-up lantern for Hal Jordan as crude as he is talented.

**Jessie Quick** – Jessica Chambers, daughter of fallen hero Johnny Quick, and the only female Speed-Force user.

**Grace** – Grace Choi, former bouncer hired by Arsenal of The Outsiders. A seven foot tall Asian woman with super strength and an enhanced healing factor.

* * *

All around Jump City, the fiends began spreading out, finding places and people to attack and terrorize and doing so. And as they moved the spread something with them—not the chaos magic released by the Boogeymen, nor the pure reality distortion of Oblivion… something more purposeful, though no less sinister. It was a mystic force that reorganized the terrain, devolved the technology; the world was becoming a fairy tale right before the very eyes of its heroes. 

Raven finally spoke above everyone else. "This is bad. I know I'm stating the obvious, but I can _feel_ it. She's tapping into a well of mystic energy that I never knew existed until now."

"And knowing our luck," said Robin, "the proliferation of fiction over the past thousand years is only going to make her well deeper."

"I'm afraid so," Raven said.

"Curse you, Johannes Gutenberg!" Gauntlet blurted…

Robin glanced over to the natural leader, Superman, as if for guidance and direction. But Superman only smirked at him.

"I believe I said once before: your city, your command, Robin." Superman referred of course to their battle with Oblivion; nobody but those present at the fight even remembered it, but luckily Superman was one of those present.

Tim nodded, grateful once again that Superman trusted his judgment so well. "Alright," he said. "Power Girl, Starfire, fly up and scan the area. Report back. Superman, do whatever you can, but avoid the Queen of Fables herself. She's magic, and you're not good against that."

"You don't have to remind me," Superman said as he flew off.

Robin turned to Jessie Quick. "Chambers, scout the city, look for things that Karen and Kory might miss from the air."

Jessie glared at him, a glare that said 'Who _hasn't_ Nightwing blurted my identity to yet?'

Robin understood, though her anger was misplaced; he'd deduced it on his own without any help from Dick. Nevertheless, he wasn't going to reprimand her about her poor choice of Superhero name at a time like this.

"What do you want me to do?" Guy Gardner, the Green Lantern asked.

"First, why are _you_ here?" Robin said, obviously puzzled. The word _you_ had come out with a bit more venom than he had intended. Like Batman, who had once KOed Guy with a single punch, Robin and Guy had never seen eye to eye. Still, Gardner was a hero, and he regretted the way he'd worded his question.

"Well," Guy said, "Stewart wanted to come to help out Cyborg, but he was busy training Supergirl, so he sent me. Simple as that."

Robin nodded. "Do whatever you can. I don't know how effective your ring will be against the witch, but you're more likely to survive a direct attack from her than Superman. But above all use that ring to help the people she's attacking."

"Will do, Kid Wonder," Guy said before flying off. "Time to smash some troll heads in!"

Meanwhile, Gauntlet watched as Savior and Jinx stood with the HIVE Five (Times Two) members, thwarted in their attempt to sneak away.

"You really need to learn to be more subtle," Savior said. "But besides that, we could use your help." The tone in his voice let them know that he didn't expect them to help, of course. Savior didn't expect anything from them but crime and ignorance.

"You think we're stickin' our necks out to help you heroes after all this bank business?" Mammoth barked. "No way!"

"Munch on snot, crud brain!" said Gizmo. His teeth were bared. "You do-gooders are on your own."

"Just what I thought," Jinx said. "Come on guys, this is our planet too. Your help could be invaluable and…"

"Forget it, Llarenes." Savior's voice dripped with acid. "Let the ants crawl back to their hiding places. Cowards never step up and fight for what is right. We can't expect your former friends to. Let's go. Some of us actually want our flash-in-a-pan lives to be worth something."

And with that, Noel threw up a shimmer strand and vanished.

As the criminals stood their flabbergasted, Jinx began to walk off. Selinda called back to her. "Are you sure you're staying with them, Jinx?"

"Shimmer, you know I can't abandon them now. I've made my choice. I'm sorry you can't follow me."

Shaking her head, Selinda turned and silently ran off with her nine companions.

And Jinx turned to go with hers**  
**

* * *

Even as a Big Bad Wolf sent Metatron careening over his headBeast Boy turned into a Tyrannosaurus and charged towards a line of attacking gingerbread soldiers, even as Jessie Quick blasted through a line of them in the distance, tearing them to shreds. 

A couple of ogres, these not of the Oreo variety, leapt atop Beast Boy and he struggled for a minute before transforming into a pterodactyl and allowing them to drop to the ground, then swooped down in the form of a small velociraptor and bit at their heels…

Jessie Quick blasted by, slamming her elbow into one of the ogre's kidneys, causing the beast to stagger over. Beast Boy responded by becoming an ankylosaurus and whipping his tail around into one of the heads of the ogres.

Grace fell to the ground after a huge leap, landing next to Beast Boy, and slamming her fist into one of the ogres so hard, windows shattered across the whole block, and the creature staggered back before collapsing in a heap.

"So, your power is to turn into Dinosaurs?" Grace remarked, blocking a powerful blow from Ogre 10 and then hurling him into a manga store. Thankfully there were no people in it.

Beast Boy briefly resumed his human form. "Any animal," he growled, transforming into a large bear and tackling ogre seven, even as Jessie returned and pummeled number three via super speed and Grace finished off number four with a powerful body slam.

Beast Boy turned and made a high-five motion towards Grace, but rather than getting a response from her, Jessie Quick moved in at super speed to intercept it.

"So, what exactly are you guys doing here?" Beast Boy asked, transforming back into a human.

Jessie Quick shrugged, her long blond hair falling over her shoulders. She silently cursed the fact she'd forgotten to wear her speed-resistant hair bow. "When Flash heard that multiple Titans were trapped in a bank, and he couldn't get a hold of Kid Flash, he got worried. But he and Jay were busy in Central City, so he asked me to come."

"Grace, right?" Beast Boy asked, indicating he wanted a similar explanation. Grace just so happened to be a seven-foot tall Asian woman with red hair and tattoos on her arms and bare midriff—the overall fearsomeness of her appearance made Beast Boy hesitate questioning her.

"Nightwing heard about Robin, couldn't come, sent me." She clearly was not happy about being bossed around, but had seemed to enjoy the fight. Beast Boy decided not to pursue the matter further.

Besides, a rather nasty looking duo of wolves had just appeared, diverting the trio's attention.

"I'll take the ugly one," Beast Boy said, becoming an elephant.

Grace grimaced. "Which one's the ugly one?"

"Who cares!" Jessie shouted. "Titans go, right!**  
**

* * *

All across Jump City, the heroes fanned out and began doing what they do; Beast Boy, Jessie, and Grace snaked through the streets of the town, taking down the foot soldiers that patrolled the city, terrorizing the civilians, while elsewhere others got to work. 

Robin found himself confronting a souped-up version of Robin Hood and the Merry Men, dodging away from their arrows and returning fire with his Smart Scythe. The blade lanced out, but, impossibly, Hood blocked it with nothing but his wooden bow and it almost clattered to the ground before the anti-grav units kicked in and sent it back to Robin.

Starfire joined her lover, blasting at Robin Hood and Friar Tuck with a flurry of Starbolts. Robin Hood was caught in the brunt of the blast and sent flying backwards into a billboard, which collapsed on him..

Unfortunately, he crawled out from underneath it, not unscathed but little the worse for wear.

Even while Star had blasted, Friar Tuck had managed to escape the brunt of the blast by rolling to the side. And then he did something completely unexpected—he physically hurled his chubby body across the gap between the roof he was on and the roof Robin was on, tackling the Boy Wonder to the ground and causing him to drop the Scythe.

Tim threw the monk off of him and rolled away, assuming a low defensive stance as he held up his hand and intercepted the returning Scythe.

"I _really_ need to ask Bruce for one of this," he said to himself.

He glanced to the side when Starfire entered his peripheral vision. "Robin, I believe we have a problem. These… things… these manifestations seem to share attributes to…"

"The Boogeymen," Robin muttered, remembering his battle with Jason Voorhees. This wasn't the first time the Titans had faced fictional characters.

"Course of action?" Starfire inquired.

Robin's eyes narrowed as Friar Tuck charged at him. "Even for all their powers, we still beat the Boogeymen. This should be no different."

Robin lifted his Scythe and slashed at Friar Tuck's throat at just the right moment…

Contact. A strange purple energy spewed from the slit, and Friar Tuck collapsed to the ground, and vanished.

Starfire blasted forward, dodging an arrow and pummeling Robin Hood before he could react, finally sending him careening to the street below where he was promptly run-over by a speeding pickup.

"Oops…" Starfire said.

Suddenly, Robin and Starfire were surrounded by hundreds of Merry Men, all wielding knives or bows, arrows notched.

"Titans go?" Starfire asked.

Robin nodded. "Something like that.**  
**

* * *

The warehouse at Pier Forty-One was certainly an historic site for the Titans. Robin had once nearly beat the crap out of a man there after not finding Slade's decoy Chronoton Detonator, where Robin had first displayed his inexplicable talent to single-handedly destroy large groups of robots, and the place where he had almost altered history to prevent the conception of his child. 

Now it was a place infested with goblins. Gauntlet and Scalpel were currently trying to fix that, tearing through the hordes of little buggers. Scalpel leaped atop one of the goblins and tore it to pieces, the viscera vanishing into a cloud of lavender energy.

Gauntlet, less fond of such feral pleasures, used a giant hammer made of his trademark yellow energy. Three goblins jumped at him, and three were sent sailing into the bay.

A rather large goblin leaped towards Scalpel, and Nigel rolled away bringing his Glaive up and slicing it in half.

"Nice one," Gauntlet said, giving him a thumbs-up.

Nigel grinned at him with his large razor-sharp teeth. "Many thanks, though I do believe my blade needs sharpening."

Suddenly, a loud explosion, like a gun going off, startled the bullet-vulnerable Blacktrinian. Gauntlet ran out onto the pier, and Scalpel followed him cautiously. There, they saw the source of the noise.

Out in the bay, three pirate ships surrounded a huge luxury ocean liner, blasting away at the larger vessel. Cannon shots echoed throughout Jump City's bay area, and Nigel became worried when several shots lanced by Titans Tower, far too close for comfort.

"Sophie!" he shouted. His girlfriend was still in the tower, and she was in danger. Should a stray cannonball burst through one of those windows…

"We have to get to Sophie!" Nigel shouted.

Gauntlet frowned. "You want us to go up against a bunch of actual pirates?"

Nigel nodded.

"Heck yes! Count me in!" Gauntlet said, forming a hook of yellow energy over his left hand and a cutlass in his right.

"By the by, why is there a luxury liner in the harbor? I was under the impression that your politicians had long made it illegal to harbor ships that large in this port."

Gauntlet formed a small telescope with Gauntlet energy, and scanned the ship.

"It says it is the RMS Titan—christened in 1898…"

"It's another manifestation itself," Nigel realized aloud. "In that case, we can use it as a platform to get to the tower."

Robert hesitated even as Nigel stepped forwards. The undercurrent in his voice had said everything. "Look Nigel, if you're being afrai…"

Nigel glared…

"I mean, cautiously prudent… about jumping over so much water given your species limitations… You don't have to go."

"Sophie could be in trouble," Nigel said. "I'm going."

Robert nodded, not wanting to argue with his team-mate. Maybe he didn't have a girlfriend, but he knew how protective those guys that did could be of theirs.

"Be careful, and if you miss, I'll do my best to catch you…"

"Huh?" Nigel said, turning to see Rob behind him… And failing, as Gauntlet had already darted past him on the other side and used the gauntlet energy to spring onto the distant _RMS Titan._

Scalpel backed up to the door of the warehouse to get a running start, and then took off, running to the end of the pier before hurling himself over the bay…

The deadly water mocked him as he leapt**  
**

* * *

Cyborg rolled away from a vicious attack on the part of a very rare and dangerous white-were-orc, and blasted it away with his sonic cannon. The beast fell backward and rolled into the metal pole that held up a stoplight. But it recovered quickly, and flew at Cyborg again. Vic leapt over it, firing one of his shoulder-mounted missiles at it as it rolled away; the missile hit it and caused the creature to explode and vanish. 

Unfortunately, he was quickly assaulted by a group of sun-resistant vampires that knocked him over and sent him to careening backwards into the column that held up Slice Pizza's balcony…

Vic pressed a button on his arm that gave his metallic body a charge, and all the vampires leapt off of him, screaming. He blasted two of them with his autocannon, which he had supplied a few garlic bullets for in the case of such an emergency—but the other seven got to him before he could gun them down… He fought against them, but began to lose the struggle…

When suddenly, a massive pink wave of energy slammed into the vampires, sending them careening into a storefront.

Jinx flipped in and kicked one of them in the face, then pulled out a small cross necklace and held it up to the vampire's forehead; it exploded into a cloud of smoke an energy.

"Whoa…" Cyborg said.

"There are some advantages to starting life in a Catholic orphanage," Jinx said, giving Victor a sideways smirk.

Unfortunately, that smirk was soon wiped off her face as all around them zombies and skeletons began to rise from the ground.

"Oh, no, not the undead again!" Cyborg complained. It was like a sea of them, animated corpses ebbing and flowing, threatening civilians (most of whom were already gone.)…

Cyborg greatly questioned the common sense of those who weren't, and began using selective bursts of normal bullets from his left arm and sonic blasts from his right, trying to take done the undead closest to the not-at-all-dead first, and then getting the ones that were just part of the corpse lagoon…

Unfortunately, Jinx alone was not able to hold them off with hex blasts, despite her valiant effort, and Cyborg found himself having to use his buzz-saw to hack them off of her…

"What now, Vic?" she asked as he helped her to her feet.

"Get on my shoulders," he said. "I'm gonna try and find some higher ground."

Jinx complied, climbing atop her boyfriend, using him to keep her head above the 'water' he sliced and hacked his way through the hordes of the undead. Jinx aided him, blasting zombies and skeletons with hex blasts, and enchanting anything in the area she thought would do a great service to them by becoming more unlucky.

Slow progress, but it was working… so far.

"I don't suppose it would do any real good to say it?" Jinx said, blasting a parked bus, causing it to shift into neutral and roll down the hill. Many zombies were crushed.

"Say what?" Cyborg asked.

"Titans, go!**  
**

* * *

A troupe of straggling gingerbread men charged at Terra, their candy-cane staves drawn and ready to draw blood. Terra sent a burst of rock flying at them, tearing through their cookie bodies and breaking their weapons. 

She scanned the streets around her, saw the battle surrounding her, and saw the Queen of Fables battling Guy Gardner near the top of the mountain just to the city's north.

"Well, not much more I can do here," she thought aloud. Terra formed an earth platform and started to leap atop it, when suddenly a loud thundering noise echoed through the streets to her right, and Terra broke up her platform into a cluster of projectiles to stop the oncoming threat…

Which turned out to be… Mammoth. Baran was charging through the streets, being chased by his sister, Private Hive, Progeny, and Gizmo. And the brute was dragging a cart full of pastries…

"Hungry!" mammoth grunted. "Must eat!" He thundered on by Terra, not even acknowledging her.

Terra got on a platform and hovered by the others as they ran after the fleeing Mammoth. "Will someone please tell me what the heck is going on here!" Terra demanded next to Gizmo.

"It's Baran!" Selinda said. "We were down at the homeless shelter, and while no one was looking, Baran stole forty pies!"

"That's FOUR TENS!" Private Hive added.

"And that's terrible." Progeny chimed in.

Even as he finished speaking, a spark of an idea formed inside Terra's blonde head.

Gizmo fired off an energy blast that slammed into the back of Baran's head, and the brute collapsed, his pastry cart trailing to a stop next to him…

"Give it up, Baran." Shimmer ordered. "Hungry or not, we don't steal from homeless people!"

"How can you be hungry?" Terra demanded, hovering over the villains, ready to defend herself should they succumb to their natures and attack her. "You ate dozens of soldiers when we were fighting Mother Mae-Eye… when she _was_ Mother Mae-Eye."

"I dunno!" Mammoth half wined, half barked. "It was like, when she became royalty everything in my stomach just vanished."

Terra nodded, thinking a minute. She had an idea, a way to flip the finger to that witch, but she'd need the Hive's help. Terra was only brought out of her train of thought when Gizmo glared at her and made a loud _ahem_. "What's with you crud-munching Titans having to butt into our business?"

"Sorry!" Terra shot back. "I was just thinking though, homeless people or not, I might have a use for those pies. The fact that you haven't left town yet implies that you're going to help us even if just to take vengeance on the Queen. So are you with me?"

Mammoth grabbed a pie and stuffed it into his mouth before anyone could react, and then gave her a thumbs up. "Sure, as long as I get something in my stomach."

Shimmer glanced at the ground. "Not to mention the fact that we can't leave the city thanks to the force field around it."

Tara frowned, but quickly shrugged it off. Villains would be villains, come hell or high water. "Okay, just listen up. We need to get up to the top of that mountain and then we need to find a good piece of flat ground…**  
**

* * *

"What's that ship?" Scalpel barked, pointing at the nearest ship to the increasingly defenseless _RMS Titan_. 

"It's the _Revenge,_" Gauntlet said. "I know this because the captain is the Dread Pirate Roberts, an ancestor of mine."

"Sure he is," Nigel said.

Gauntlet dodged under a cannonball, which flew out into the bay and slammed into the Black Pearl, which, oddly was being helmed by Long John Silvers rather than Barbossa.

A man who looked remarkably like Johnny Depp in a pirate outfit ran onto the deck next to Scalpel and Gauntlet, shouting 'That man stole my ship!'

"Dude…" Gauntlet said, his eyes growing enormous and filling up with shiny anime-tears. "You're Captain Jack Sparrow!"

"About bloody time someone recognized me for the wonderful guy I am," Sparrow said smugly, downing a swig from the bottle of rum he'd been carrying.

"Jack Sparrow—" Gauntlet began.

"_Captain_ Jack Sparrow," Jack insisted.

"Right… Captain Jack Sparrow is way too awesome to be cannon fodder for the Teen Titans. Go back to your own world! We'll rescue your ship!"

"NO!" Nigel blurted, smashing out a fist knocking Jack overboard and into the drink. "We rescue Sophie!"

Rob sulked, but finally agreed. However, he still tried to help Jack out by throwing a life preserver and a shiny pistol he'd found lying around somewhere he didn't recall.

He followed Nigel to the edge of the ship, and both gazed out over Titans Tower. "I can't make the jump," Nigel said. "But if I hop onto that pirate ship, and then to the island, it should work."

"Those pirates have guns. With, you know… Bullets and stuff." Gauntlet's voice was unusually serious now, knowing that this could be a suicide mission for the alien.

"Deflect them for me," Nigel said, more ordering than asking. "Robert, I have to find her! Jump in front of me and make a shield."

"I… But…" Gauntlet frowned, but didn't dare protest to a lovesick Blacktrinian. "Fine." Using his Gauntlet spring again he leapt off the doomed luxury ship and towards the _Jolly Rodger_.

Gauntlet landed first, simultaneously causing an explosion of energy and keeping a fairly potent energy shield up, deflecting enough bullets that none of them hit the Blacktrinian.

Scalpel landed right behind Gauntlet… Or at least he would have, had Robert not grabbed the alien in a massive pair of yellow energy tongs and hurled him at a group of pirates that had traded their guns for cutlasses. Nigel immediately went to work with a feral growl, slicing the blades in half with his claws and knocking several pirates overboard. One particularly nasty-looking buccaneer with an eye patch charged at the alien with an oar, but Scalpel snapped it in half with his glaive and tore the eye patch off.

Then he inserted a claw into the empty socket, causing the pirate to collapse into a cloud of lavender energy. A volley of gunfire rang out, and Scalpel started to hit the deck before realizing that Gauntlet had stepped in, blocking all the bullets with a gauntlet energy shield.

"Why did you fling me?" Nigel demanded.

"Dude," Gauntlet shouted over the roar of gunfire, "You weigh four hundred pounds! You would have made a hole right through the deck."

Nigel responded by hurling his glaive straight up and through the throat of a fictional pirate in the crows nest; this pirate also vanished.

"You could have at least warned me."

Suddenly, Nigel's concern was moot, as Captain Hook himself emerged from the cabin, with a vicious-looking rapier at his side and a pistol in his hand…

Gauntlet rolled forward as soon as he saw the gun, leaving Nigel undefended for a split second. That was all the time it took for a bullet to explode from the barrel of Hook's gun. Nigel tried to move, but the projectile still grazed his shoulder, sending a burst of pain throughout his body.

Rob shouted his disapproval and used the gauntlet to knock Hook's gun from his hand, then uppercutted the pirate onto the upper deck. Still, he used a lot of power with that blow; it was clear that Hook was a lot more solid than anything else on the ship.

"Go! Jump to the tower! I'll hold off Hook!"

Not arguing with an opportunity to get to Sophie faster, Nigel darted across the deck and collected his glaive, using it to separate one last pirate from his lower spinal column before hurling himself across the remaining distance onto Titan Island.

Gauntlet, meanwhile, clashed battled with the captain of the _Jolly Rodger,_ two Gauntlet blades meeting the rapier that Hook had unsheathed. Gauntlet tried to strike high, but amazingly the evil captain parried the blow and sent the magic-artifact wielding hero to his knees. Gauntlet rolled out of the way as Hook stabbed down with his sword, then lashed out at the pirate. But Hook was inhumanly fast, blocking the blow and continuing the fight, tying to strike at Gauntlet's throat.

Rob jumped back, turning his swords into a giant hammer that he tried to use to knock Hook into the bay. Swinging it like a baseball bat, the blow made contact… and was deflected by Captain Hook's blade. "What!" Gauntlet blurted. "No way! This is real life, not _Soul Calibur_! I demand a recount… or a redo… or a Remax agent. Or something."

Rob's complaint was cut off quite literally when the sword that deflected his hammer slammed hard into his Gauntlet, causing sparks to fly from the ancient device. Rob immediately got his head back in the game, standing up and grabbing a nearby cannon, which he tossed at Hook with his gauntlet energy..

The pirate that Disney had portrayed as such a wuss simply sliced the metal cannon in half and kept on coming. Gauntlet jumped over his next attack, but was stabbed in the back of the leg as he came down. He managed to prevent further damage, and the blade had only entered his leg about half a centimeter, but it still made his leg feel almost numb.

"Amateur," Captain Hook derided him. "You may wield a far fancier blade than I do, but your youth and inexperience will prove you undoing."

"Funny," Gauntlet said, "if I remember right, this picture ends with you getting your butt kicked by a little kid. Ever heard of a guy called Pan?"

"You insult me!" Captain Hook shouted, slashing at the Titan with his namesake hook-hand. The sharp point came inches from Rob's face when he reacted, pushing himself up onto the uninjured leg and simultaneously hooking Hook's hook in his own… hook.. and jerking the pirate man forward into a Gauntlet-encased fist.

Captain Hook spat some blood on the deck and attacked with his sword again, slamming into Rob's defense and knocking him backwards. Gauntlet had effectively taunted him before, so he continued.

"Tick, tock, tick, tock," the Titan mimicked the sounds of a clock.

This angered the pirate further, sending him into a rage. Hook lunged at him with a slice of his accursed Uberrapier, but Gauntlet caught the attack in his right hand, the magic artifact protecting his palm from harm, and then smashed Hook over the head with a hammer formed from Gauntlet energy…

The pirate staggered back, but recovered fast enough to lash out his blade cutting across Rob's shirt—right through the weak energy shield his Gauntlet provided. The cut wasn't deep, but sweat ran into the wound, making it sting. "Ouch…"

"You deserve worse for mocking me, villain!" Hook said… "You may have gotten lucky twice, but you shan't a third time."  
"Is that a crocodile?" Rob asked, pointing behind the pirate.

"What?" Captain Hook turned, nearly leaping into Robert's arms—where Gauntlet grabbed him by the shoulders with two giant robot arms made of Gauntlet energy.

Rob smirked at the pirate. "Made ya' look."

Then both Titan and pirate went airborne, Rob using a Gauntlet spring to fling them both overboard.

_Tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik._

The pounding of the clock was suddenly so loud, Gauntlet smirked. "Well, maybe I was right after all, Hookey." Rob simply dropped the pirate into the waiting jaws of the crocodile, and then used a Gauntlet-energy hang glider to land safely on the Island.

By the time he got to the front door, Nigel had already almost clawed his way through it**  
**

* * *

The Space Needle. It was one of Jump City's defining features. 

The mainland states ironically had space needle at both the northwestern and southeastern extremities—Washington and Florida. Noel also knew it had been the site of several important events for the Titans. It was the place where the Titans had first learned that Robin had become Slade's apprentice. It was the place where, in another universe, Slade had finished marking Raven with the runes that would bring Trigon to the mortal plane, and then dropped her like so much refuse.

Now it was the place… where Savior was confronting Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. Pan swooped down towards Savior, and Noel swung out of the way, dodging a couple of jabs of the boy's dagger.

"You fiend!" Peter Pan cried. "Only a pirate would dress the way you dress, think the way you think!"

"You're delusional, kid," Savior spat, swinging below the flying boy and onto the rail of the Space Needle. "Pirates don't wear white." Noel barely registered the words had come from his own mouth, just by the tone of irony in his voice.

"Stop trying to confuse me with your adult logic!" Pan barked, swooping down and slamming into Savior's chest with his shoulder. Savior fell back and felt a sharp pain in the side of his neck with Tinkerbell kicked him. He grabbed the accursed fairy and flung her into the side of the building before smashing his fist into Pan's face, then shimmer lining up to the top of the building.

Pan flew up, drawing a rapier from apparently nowhere, and charging at Savior, his teeth bared in a gleeful grin. "You'll never escape me, white pirate!"

Savior just spat a curse and fell backwards off the tip of the building, turning over in mid air and firing a shimmer bludgeon up into the lost boy's stomach. Pan recoiled from the attack and flipped over in mid air, slicing at Noel's face. Savior blocked it with a Super Shimmer Strand Sword and landed on the railing of the Space Needle before stepping down onto the platform.

Pan lunged at the Titan stabbing at him with his blade. Savior deflected it way from its target—his throat—but it slammed into his shoulder, not piercing the armor of his coat and shirt, but still causing pain to shoot through his shoulder.

"What is this stuff?" Pan demanded, holding the dagger to Noel's jugular. "Your clothes stop blades like armor, but they're not!"

"You got a lot to learn about the twenty-first century kid!" Noel snapped. Pan tried to slit his throat, but found that during the brief conversation, Savior had wrapped his neck in a shimmer wrap dense enough to not be cut by the blade. Of course, that had made breathing rather difficult, and Savior quickly threw the lost boy off of him and got his sword ready again. The two combatants clashed, blade meeting blade as they began to duel on the outer platform of the tallest building in the city…

"Take this!" Pan barked, acting like he was about to punch Noel in the face. Which is why Noel didn't see Tinkerbell at all when the fairy popped out of nowhere and slammed into his head, knocking him into a wall.

She hovered up rubbing her head and trying to shake away the disorientation caused by the impact.

"Good job, Tink!" Peter Pan said, smiling at his companion. "Let's show this old man who is boss here in Neverland."

Peter Pan performed a flying kick (literally) that slammed Savior through the door of the space needle into the tech-lab within, where Savior crashed into a telescope and knocked it over.

Peter Pan and Tinkerbell entered and attacked him again, but Savior refused to lose to a kid and his stupid glowing flying thing.

He was just glad it wasn't making itself even more annoying with shouts of **'HEY!'** and **'LISTEN!' **

* * *

Superman and Power Girl were now taking turns at slamming into the giant at high speeds… until it swung at them with his massive arms and sent them careening into the ground… Both heroes in one blow.. 

Karen dug herself out of the pile of rubble that had been a duplex and thanked God there were no civilians inside it at the time. Kal-El had already recovered and was now blasting the giant with his heat vision, trying to pain him into submission. But unfortunately, the giant was only angered by the pain. Karen blasted forward, slamming into the Giant's face and delivering a series of powerful blows.

Not being terribly happy about this, the giant smacked at Power Girl, sending her careening back into the side of the Wayne building. Superman was flying circles around the monster, but still unable to do any real damage…. Frustrated, Karen blasted up to the roof of the building and ripped the massive W from the Wayne Enterprises sign, and then blasted forward, slamming it into the giant's head, brutally beating him with it until the sign was no more.

A small line of blood trickled from the giant's face—well, small proportionally speaking. He ignored this, but instead glared at the blood on Karen's hands—she'd been holding that W more tightly than she'd thought…

"I smell the blood of a Kryptonian woman," the giant announced.

Superman, enraged by the implication of the statement, slammed a powerful blow into the Giant's face that staggered him. "And how exactly do you know about Krypton?" Superman asked smugly.

"Wikipedia," the Giant answered.

Superman blinked, and the two just stared at each other for a minute as Kal-El contemplated the implications of that statement. "But… what kind of connection can you get in the clouds?"

"I have a broadband cable modem," the Giant said, as though it were the most obvious thing on the planet.

"BUT HOW THE HECK DO YOU GET A _WIRE_ INTO THE _CLOUDS_?"

Power Girl muttered, "Um, Clark, I think we have bigger concerns."

"No, no, seriously, how many people died making this guy's connection possible? A wire into the clouds has to be an air traffic hazard."

"Kal, he _didn't even exist _in our world until a few minutes ago!"

"Well that raises _MORE _QUESTIONS!"

BOOM! Clark suddenly went flying backwards despite the fact that the Giant hadn't moved.

The giant had used Super Breath.

Now, before you think that this raises yet _more_ questions, some explanation is in order. Superman has a power called Super Breath, which is essentially the ability to cause winds of tornado-esque power with nothing but his lungs. This comes from his Kryptonian physiological ability to store massive amounts of air in his lungs—air can be compressed tighter because his lungs aren't as fragile as human lungs, though they are indeed of the same proportions. This same ability is how Superman was able to survive in space for extended periods of time.

The Giant, on the other hand, simply had really frikkin' huge lungs, and so, a sharp breath for him was the equivalent of one of Kal-El's super breaths. Superman went sailing backwards, caught in the torrent of wind, and though Karen struggled against it, she too went sailing backwards.

In typical Superman-family fashion, they used the same tactic again, hoping it would work. This time, they both grabbed the A and the Y respectively from the building's roof and charged at the Giant, beating him, hopefully into submission with the giant light-up text.

It didn't really work all that well. They wounded him farther, but they were only flesh wounds. The giant just smashed them both away again, and they stopped to catch a breath and restrategize.

"So…" Karen said. "You have anything?"

Superman shrugged. "I really wish I'd listened to Bruce when he said I needed to learn martial arts too."

"I know how ya feel."

Then Power Girl watched as, down below a smaller giant was giving Raven and Starfire a fit. However, they did something interesting… Raven coated herself in black energy, and Starfire herself in Starbolt energy, as they joined hands and blurred at the giant in a spiral drill attack that knocked the giant on his back…

"You think maybe we could do something like that?" Karen asked.

"It's worth a shot," Superman said. "But for this guy we'll need to build up some speed."

"We could fly around the city in circles really, really fast and then both slam into him together."

"Works for me," Superman said. Suddenly, both heroes blasted off, circling Jump City at supersonic speeds, before breaking out of the loop together and blasting towards the giant, slamming into his solar plexus simultaneously with a powerful double-uppercut.

The giant went airborne, arcing out into the bay…

Directly towards Titans Tower…

"Aw crud," Power Girl muttered.

Superman blasted towards the tower, but was already exhausted from the blow he'd just delivered to the giant… He realized he'd never make it in time…

And then he saw Guy Gardner, using the Green Lantern ring to take out some monsters that had risen near the bay.

"Guy!" Superman shouted, projecting his voice with his super ventriloquism talent, "The giant!"

With his telescopic vision, Superman saw Guy glance up and see the enormous giant heading straight for the Tower, and despite his rough and tumble attitude, Guy knew what to do. Blasting towards the tower, guy hit the roof and raised his hands towards the giant, a stream of green energy coming out of his ring. "No way, big guy!" He barked. The energy surrounded the giant and Guy fell backwards, rocking all the way back and then using all his willpower to force the green energy upward…

The Giant went sailing off the roof of the tower and out over the Atlantic, riding the green beam of energy to his demise.

Superman and Power Girl breathed a sigh of relief and then turned to find more work**.  
**

* * *

Terra dodged away from a blast of magical power, even as the Queen of Fables began to wipe the dirt from her face and hair. 

"Peasant!" She shouted, blasting another blue beam of evil energy at Terra. Terra escaped the attack and used her geokinesis to send another flurry of stones flying at the witch, pelting her, even as she retreated backwards…

"I may be a peasant," Terra said with a smirk, "but at least I'm not wearing a peacock!"

"Insolent child," Queen of Fables said with a wicked laugh. "You are wearing nothing, as far as I'm concerned. You are worthless and naked before me; you are a worm, in my eyes, Tara Markov."

Terra dumped another pile of dirt on her. "Funny, I've never known anybody who names their worms."

Queen of Fables lifted her hands and a swarm of flying monkeys, like those from the Wizard of Oz, exploded from a portal in reality. Terra had expected something like that, and deftly began blasting them through the heart with small rocks she'd prepared.

Nearby, INSTIGATOR blasted some flying monkeys, even as Cyborg and Jinx shot a few out of the air.

"Titans go!" Terra shouted with a smirk, blasting several more airborne simians with shards of rock and earth.

She continued then to flee, dumping the remainder of her dirt on Queen of Fables. This only instigated a further fit of annoyance from the dark queen. And all the while, Terra was retreating back to the mountain…

As the Queen and Terra approached, she lifted her hands, her rock platform lowering onto a flat part of the mountain even as chunks broke off and went flying at the Queen. Furious, the Queen summoned a huge well of dark magic and destroyed the chunks as the approached her, then summoning a duo of dastardly dragons to attack Terra.

"These will keep you busy…" Queen of Fables started..

It might of worked had not Mammoth and Private Hive suddenly jumped from the top of the mountain, both wielding blunt weapons against the dragons, beating them into submission before Queen of Fables could sic them on Terra.

Annoyed, but refusing to lose her cool, the Queen pursued Terra even more, even landing on top of the mountain and walking towards Terra. And despite all the rocks that Terra had thrown at her, the Queen remained unharmed. She raised her massive armored arm, her chalk-white skin briefly glowing as a massive metal sword appeared.

"Behold the Blade of True Lies, mortal. You shall be the first to die by its steel in over one thousand years."

"Um… How about not?" Tara said, a few drops of sweat falling from her brow. She jumped back, her eyes glowing yellow as she shouted. "NOW, GUYS!"

Suddenly the ground beneath her erupted upward, a perfect culvert in the ground, carved by Terra and lined with shrubbery for oxygen conversion—and inside…

Progeny, Shimmer, and Gizmo.

And the stolen cart of thirty-nine pies.

All the pies suddenly lanced out, Terra grabbing her own several and hurling them at the Queen of Fables, covering the witch in steaming hot pie goo. All thirty-nine pies soon adorned the dread witch, and she did not seem to mind the heat at all..

But staring into her eyes, Terra could see that something was different… something had changed… She stood there a moment longer, not flinching in the slightest that scalding hot-pie goo was running down her face and neck.

"Pies…" The Queen of Fables growled, in a voice closer to Mother Mae-Eye's than her own. "PIIIIIEEEEEES….."

She'd snapped, it seemed.

"I HATE PIES! I'm _SICK_ of PIES! I was trapped in pies, baked pies, conjured up pies… FOR_ HUNDREDS_ OF YEARS!"

Okay, correction. _Now_ she'd snapped.

"I declare WAR on all pies!" The Queen of Fables shouted, taking off into the air again, a furious blue aura of magic exploding around her and causing all the pie goo on her to vanish. Into the air she flew, magic energy lancing out of the aura and striking buildings where pastries were sold or made.

She wasn't destroying them, though. Instead of exploding into balls of fire like one might expect, everywhere the beams hit something very different happened. The terrain all around them changed; enchanted forests sprang up where trees had once been sparse. Magic castles replaced homes and factories. Beautiful countrysides and medieval villages suddenly phased into existence where there had been none. Mermaids leapt from Jump City bay, even as the Wayne Enterprises building transformed into an enormous bean stalk, stretching up beyond the golden clouds overhead.

Terra watched as the streets ran gold with yellow bricks and magic carpets replaced helicopters in the sky…

"She's making the entire city like a story book," Terra muttered.

Progeny glared at her. "If it took you that long to figure it out, you must be a natural blonde," he said.

"Oh, right, that coming from the guy who had to point out that taking pies from homeless people was 'terrible'," Tara shot back.

Progeny only blushed, and said nothing else**.  
**

* * *

Using the 'override code' (which was actually just Gauntlet might combined with Blacktrinian brute strength), Robert and Nigel were able to break into the locked-down Titans Tower and open the elevator. "I hope Sophie is okay," Nigel muttered. "I swear I will destroy that witch for what she did to me." 

Gauntlet nodded. "Can't say I blame you man."

The elevator doors opened and the two Titans rushed into the Ops room. Sophie was nowhere to be seen at first, and Nigel started to head to her room, when he suddenly caught a rotund female form sprawled out on the ground by an ops-room computer.

"Sophie!" he called, running towards her.

Gauntlet followed close behind, and got there just as Scalpel was able to revive the fallen civilian.

"Nigel?" she asked, somewhat dazed. "It was so horrible… it made no sense…"

"It still doesn't," Nigel said, clearly talking about something different than his girlfriend. "What happened, who did this to you? Who attacked you?"

"Attacked me?" Sophie said, starting to come to… "Nobody attacked me, I just passed out… From reading…"

"Reading!" Nigel blurted. "What could you have read that made you pass out?"

"I…" Sophie started to say, pointing towards her still-active computer. Gauntlet was already there, skimming the page that she had been viewing. "What's going on?" Sophie asked, suddenly looking around for the first time. "Is the tower on lock down?"

"You don't know?" Nigel said, wide-eyed. "About the bank or Mother Mae-Eye or the Queen of Fables."

Sophie gave him a confused look, but Gauntlet interrupted before they could go farther. "Guys! This is _it!"_

He indicated the computer screen.

"What is it?" Nigel asked.

"This is how we defeat the Queen of Fables!"

Sophie paled, but Nigel walked over to the computer anyway, and saw that it was opened to a Fan Fiction website. Gauntlet pointed to the title of the story in question, and Scalpel gasped… It couldn't be! That story… it was just a myth! It was like the Killjoy of fan fiction! No story could possibly be as bad as this one was rumored to be… It just defied logic…

But just as Killjoy had proven himself real, there it was, plain as day:

**_The Defeat of Teen Titans Trigon Ruler of the Universe!_  
**

* * *

On the outskirts of town, Metatron picked himself up off the ground and sat up. He ached in a hundred places and felt numb in another fifty. His head was pounding as though there was an army marching around inside it beating on their war drums, just to spite him. The pounding got harder and louder, and suddenly he realized that he wasn't just hearing it in his head—it was real. Jumping to his feet and looking around, Adam quickly found the source of the drumming through his enhanced senses, and burst through the brick wall between himself and the source of the commotion. 

His face muscles were too tired to react to what he saw, and he wasn't sure how exactly to respond. It _was_ an army. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers in black armor marched towards Jump City from the south, and they would be at Met's position within thirty minutes.

Focusing, Adam scanned the army with his heightened demon senses; he still couldn't quite make out the details, but they certainly didn't look human…

Suddenly, a massive blast of energy came from nearby and slammed into the front line of the approaching army. Met looked its direction and saw Viridian, still in her tank form, blasting away at the approaching army.

"Bliss!" he shouted, running over to her. "What the flying fork is going on over there?"

Suddenly, a loud gravely nearby intoned, _"There are orcs, many of them."_

Both Adam and Bliss turned to see Gizmo hovering near by holding a video iPod, currently tuned into _Lord of the Rings. _

Mikron sweatdropped, and chucked the iPod away, then gave a nervous chuckle before launching into his typical insults. "What are you pit-sniffers looking at?"

"Well…" Metatron thumbed toward the approaching army. "It would seem that there are… orcs…"

"Many of them," Bliss deadpanned. She shot a few more with her chain gun.

"Yeah, well I already pied the witch and took down some deranged pixies, so you snot-eaters can just forget getting any help from me."

Bliss just continued firing.

Adam shrugged and turned away.

"I mean it!" Mikron shouted. "Not one milligram! Not even a single quantum particle!"

Adam and Bliss continued to ignore him.

"Fine then, but only because you'll say I'm a coward otherwise!" Gizmo spat, dropping a couple of small egg-shaped metallic devices. Suddenly bright light transformed both of them into rather large laser turrets. "Feast your eyes on the power of technology, kludge-brains. Devil boy, get into that gun-turret and start shooting!"

Metatron glared at the diminutive evil genius, but complied, taking aim at the nearest of the oncoming orc army and opening fire**.  
**

* * *

Noel dodged away from Tinkerbell once again; somewhere in the laboratory she had acquired a safety pin, broken the safety part off, and was using the sharp end to poke Noel whenever she got the chance. 

The Titans' resident jerk dived out of the way of a beaker thrown at him by Peter Pan and then made an S4 as wide as a tennis racket and used it to smash Tinkerbell away as she poked at him with her pin once more: he'd lost enough blood in this lifetime.

Angered, Pan charged at him, and Noel and the lost boy brought their blades together once again, fencing through the lab. Normally this fight would have been over in just a few minutes, even with Pan's ability to fly, but thanks to the Queen of Fables, this manifestation of Peter Pan had some sort of preternatural ability to sense danger, almost as though she'd borrowed some of Peter Parker in the summoning. He'd tried twice to use the 'shimmer-line through his feet, popping out of the ground' trick twice on Pan, once normally and once from behind him; both times Pan had reacted with inhuman speed and sliced the strand, causing Noel more than a little pain.

Noel lunged into what would have been a killing blow had Pan not hovered backwards at the right moment, sending Savior off balance. This was followed by a spin kick that sent Savior flying into a shelf full of beakers and jars.

Pan smirked, raising his dagger in a perverse victory pose. Tinkerbell had recovered by this point, and charged at the Titan, aiming her pin-point at his eye this time.

Savior moved his head to the side like Han Solo dodging Greedo's blaster shot, causing Tinkerbell to bounce off the wall behind him, disoriented and pin-less. Then he grabbed the fairy with a shimmer-enhanced grip and brought the fairy close to his face.

Pan charged at him, but he used shimmer lines through his feet one last time, this time successful because of the distraction of Tinkerbell's kidnapping.

"You are _really_ starting to get on my nerves," he growled at the fairy.

Eyeing the distressed look on Pan's face, an awful idea occurred to Savior. "I DO NOT BELIEVE…" he started.

A look of horror twisted across the visage of Peter Pan. For you see, any time one uttered the words, 'I do not believe in fairies,' one of that species would breathe their last… (Assuming that fairies breathe… I'm not really sure. They'd die, regardless.)

"…That this is necessary," Savior finished, grabbing a nearby unbroken jar from the shelf he'd smashed and stuffing the fairy in it. He sealed it shut with a lid and poked a hole in the top.

Unfortunately, by this time, Peter Pan had realized the source of his restraint and was, at that very moment, stabbing into it with his dagger.

Noel cried out from the pain, the shimmer retreating into his body.

"You tried to kill her you fiend!" Peter Pan shrieked, lunging at Savior with his blade ready to kill. Mustering his strength through his pain, Savior dove forward and stopped Pan's attack from succeeding by throwing off his timing. Then he collapsed onto his stomach, the pain making him unable to stand. Earlier the shimmer had taken some minor cuts, but this was a full on stab, right through the sensitive energy. And the semi-sentient being that the shimmer existed as was furious at its owner for allowing that wound. It hadn't yet recovered from the violation.

Savior crawled forward and turned over in time to see Peter Pan lunging at him again, and kicked up into the boy's stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

"You could have killed Tinkerbell," Peter Pan hissed trying to regain his breath.

"But I didn't," Savior, said, standing on shaky legs and forcing the shimmer out into an S4. "Can you say the same, kid?"

Pan lunged at Savior, but Noel deflected the attack and the two began sword fighting again, though Savior was in no position to win in his weakened state. He had to stall the fight. "You never gave that same mercy to all the pirates you killed."

"They're just scum! Pirates! Who cares if they die! I was doing the world a favor!"

"And having fun." Savior spat. "To you, murdering them was just a game."

"And a fun one, too!" Peter Pan sliced for Savior's leg, but met only armor with his blade. "Blast you and your magic armor!"

"Don't change the subject, kid," Noel snapped smashing his fist into Peter Pan's face. "You're no better than the pirates you murder."**  
**

"I'm a hero!" Pan swung with his knife and Savior deflected it, parrying the blow into a disarm. Noel grabbed the sword and held it to the boy's throat.

"No 'creature' that will gut a man and then crow like a bird, utterly oblivious to the pain he's in, the mess, the smell, and all that of such an act—and act like it's just a game is a hero."

"You—you're wrong!" Pan said, though it was obvious he was not sure of his words.

"There is no advantage in never growing up, kid. I've been watching you from the start, learning your sword fighting style. It's sloppy, full of holes. You leave yourself wide open and go for the killing blow. You rely on your ability to fly, and can't cope when I turn off your happy thoughts. You can't grow, you can't learn from your mistakes. You remain a child forever."

Pan backed up, hoping to escape and hoping to fly away… but the sting of Savior's words made him literally unable to think of happy thoughts at the moment…

"Anyone who can't grow up is not blessed, but abnormal. Peter Pan, you are an aberration, trapped in a world where you do not belong. Neverland is a work of fantasy, just like you."

Peter Pan gasped, suddenly dealing with his status as a aberration, non existent being in a world where his kind had no place. "You.. could have killed Tinkerbell…"

Savior nodded. "But I…"

"But you _didn't…"_

Peter Pan leaned forward onto Savior's blade, before the weary Titan could react, and began to vanish. Savior gave him a polite nod, not knowing what else to do. "Return to your glory. It does not belong here. Because here we have to put childish things away."

And with that, Peter Pan was gone, and Savior sighed in relief. "Bangarang."

Noel ran back into the room full of jars to confirm that Tinkerbell had indeed vanished when Pan did, and then turned to leave the Space Needle and rejoin the battle. It occurred to him briefly that getting sidetracked with Pan might have cost the Titans and other heroes ground in the overall struggle, but he decided that hindsight was 20/20 and navel gazing wouldn't help any…

And all such thoughts vanished when he stepped out onto the balcony of the Space Needle to see a bunch of boys wearing shorts and nothing else, faces painted like tribal leaders and wielding sticks and rocks…

"Is that the beastie?" one of them asked in a British accent.

"It's awfully white for a beastie," another commented.

Another boy, one who seemed to be the leader, stepped forward. "Are you the beastie!" he demanded, his voice full of vitriol.

Savior crossed his armed and frowned. "Jack Merridew, I presume."

The boy seemed slightly unnerved at the fact Savior knew his name; even so, Noel was already beginning to prepare a long rant about why civilization was so important and why scum like Merridew who sought out nothing but fun and led others astray were possibly the worst of humanity…

Unto a claw of black energy promptly sliced two of the boys in half and crushed Jack Merridew's head, causing all the boys to vanish into clouds of lavender energy.

The black energy manifested as a dark bird, and Raven emerged from the shadow. "What are you doing discussing politics and philosophy with Order Magic manifestations?"

"I um…" Savior sweatdropped.

"You're wasting time, Savior, now come on and help out." A small platform of black energy appeared and Raven beckoned him on.

Savior complied with no argument, and soon the two were flying over what once was Jump City. It was now a mishmash of fairy tale concepts, thrown together in a giant jigsaw puzzle.

"Are you _sure_ these are manifestations of Order Magic?" he asked. "You've always said the Boogeymen were made of Chaos Magic."

Raven frowned at his use of Beast Boy and Gauntlet's pet term for the stalkers that had tried to kill them, the HIVE Students, and the villains of Jump City on the past three hallows eves. "The Queen of Fables is using a very different method of bringing these manifestations to life, and it will all fall apart without her control. But her magic has become increasingly chaotic ever since Terra hit her with all those pies."

"Pies?" Savior asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Long story."

Savior shook his head and decided he'd have another long talk with Terra when this was over. Preferably this time not in a vault. "So basically we just have to shut Mae-Eye down and this all goes away?"

"Yes…" Raven said, though very cautiously and clearly with a condition. "IF, we shut her down before she goes totally insane. If she spectrum-shifts completely into Chaos Magic shutting her down alone won't be enough to make it all vanish."

"Then what do we do?"

"Raven lowered the platform and hovered down next to her boyfriend. "You need to help the civilians out. Robin is trying to get the counter attack organized. I'm going to try and stop her, but I'm afraid I can't fight her alone. To put things into perspective, I feel she's about half as powerful as the Sorceress. Which is bad."

Noel swore. "Fine, I'll look for Jinx and Gauntlet, and any _homo magi_ I happen to find in the city."

Raven leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. "Jinx is the most important to my current plan. Of course if Robert has a better idea you should listen to it."

"What?" Savior blurted. "What does Robert know about magic? He's not even sure if his Gauntlet is magic or super-tech."

"Nothing," Raven said. "But he knows _everything_ about violating the fourth wall, and given the current circumstances, he mighthave something important to say."

* * *

It didn't take terribly long for Noel to find Robert; he was with Power Girl. Typical. Nigel was also there, and the three were using their respective abilities to tear through a throng of goblins and undead that had sprouted in the medieval village that used to be Jump City. 

Savior landed, using a shimmer-strand combo to tear some of the undead legions apart, before joining Gauntlet and Nigel. Power Girl saw that the area was clear and flew off to help out elsewhere. Robert stared at her buttocks until she was too far away to make out the details.

"You're hopeless." Savior said with exaggerated disgust. "But Raven said your knowledge of breaking the fourth wall might be able to help us in this fight."

"She's delusional," Robert said. "The only thing that can help us.. is THIS!"

Gauntlet pulled out the story he'd printed out at Titans Tower from his shirt. It was just a few pages long, but he held it out towards Savior as though it were a radioactive decaying rat corpse with anthrax powder inside it.

"And what, pray tell, is 'this'?" Savior said, somewhat mockingly.

"A story," he said. "Or more accurately, an anti-story. It's been scientifically proven to be the worst Teen Titans fan fiction in the universe."

Savior arched an eyebrow. "How?"

"It made our resident mortician pass out from sheer outrage."

Savior blinked. "Good enough for me. Now how are we supposed to use a printed out bad fan fiction against a Queen of Fables who, Raven says, has almost half as much power as freaking Ithlian?"

"Remember that dragon-guy, Melchior?"

"Malchior," Savior corrected. "Of course I remember him. He was hitting on _my_ girlfriend while I was away on a mission."

"Do you remember how Raven _defeated, _Malchior_?"_

Savior's eyes instantly lit up. "You're suggesting…"

"Whatever that curse Raven used on him was, she could use on Queen of Fables," confirmed Gauntlet.

"This thing is much more powerful than Malchior was, Robert."

"I think I have that part of the ordeal covered, and even if I'm totally off base, it is worth a shot. You can either do that, or try and herd the medieval peasants to safety while they poke you with pitch forks."

Savior grimaced. "Give me the story," he said. "I'll try and find Raven again in this…" Savior dodged a flying monkey and then spiked it through the head with a shimmer sword. "Mess."

Nigel glanced at Robert as Savior sprang away on a shimmer-coil, unable to swing due to the fact that most of the skyscrapers were now thatched-roof taverns. "Was there any reason that it had to be _that _story?" Nigel asked. "Sophie still seemed… off when I left her at the shelter."

Gauntlet shrugged. "Mostly just payback for all the crap Mae-Eye put us through. I know, I know, it's not that noble but…"

"On the contrary," Nigel said, his voice full of resentment for all the witch had done to him. "Nothing could be more noble."

"Thank you, my dear Blacktrinian," Rob said with a bow, before braining a nearby werewolf. "Now let's go get ready for my half of the plan."

Five minutes later, the duo was in the enchanted woods that had once been Chinatown, and Gauntlet was tapping on the side of a cliff with a gauntlet energy sword.

This perplexed Nigel, as he'd tap a place, listen to the sound, then move on a few feet and tap another place.

"What on this planet are you doing?" Nigel finally asked after fifteen taps.

"Listening for the hollow place."

"Hollow place?"

Rob gave the wall one last tap, this time the noise sounding distinctly different than the earlier hits. "Ah, here it is. Nigel, I want you to strike the wall here as hard as you can…"

"Okay…." Nigel said, not sure why, but complying anyway. His blow caused a portion of the cliff side to explode inward, revealing a hidden tunnel to the inside of the mountain…

And inside were thousands upon thousands of pennies.

Nigel walked over to them, and on closer inspection found that they weren't pennies, but penny blanks… "Huh?" was all he could say. Then he said, "What?"

"Penny blanks," Gauntlet said. "They're made of copper, which conducts electricity, and that's integral to my plan."

"Um… right…" Nigel said.

Robert ignored his skepticism and immediately got to work, using some sort of machine made of Gauntlet energy to manipulate the pennies and reshape them into his desired object…

"A LIGHTING ROD?" Nigel blurted upon the tool's completion.

"Don't ask questions just come on!**  
**

* * *

High above the city, the Queen of Fables continued to orchestrate her mad scheme of magical world domination. More and more characters from fiction were flooding the city, and soon, it would fall… 

Somewhere, deep within her mind, she realized that she'd become unhinged, somehow. Maybe it was thousand years of imprisonment, or perhaps just the thought of being covered in the pastries she'd come to resent…

No matter. Soon all the peasants would bow down and worship her… or perish in the futility of resistance.

Suddenly, a massive of beam black energy slammed into the Queen, knocking her from her meditation and sending her careening into the giant bean stalk that had once been the Wayne building..

"'Mother'!" Raven's voice came, in a quiet, fierce tone.

"You may no longer call me that, detestable one. I am the Queen of Fables; I am the ruler of this and all realities!" The Queen stretched out her hand, and the Blade of True Lies formed in her hand once more.

The Queen flew towards Raven, striking with the sword in a graceful attack that belied the sword's heavy appearance. Raven dodged the attack, and fired again with a magic spell, blasting the Queen back. "You've been sealed before," she said. "I can do it again!"

"Foolish child," the Queen laughed. "The gem that sealed me has been destroyed. There is no spell that you can cast that I cannot undo!"

Lightning began to fill the air, as more and more energy poured out of the Queen's aura; the golden clouds above the sky darkened, the air growing cold.

"Azarath Metrion ZINTHOS!" Raven cried, even as a huge bolt of lightning arced from the Queen's sword directly towards her. A portion of her soul self exploded from Raven's hands, colliding with the lightning bolt and stopping it in its tracks…

But rather than just dispersing, the lighting bolt, only stalled a moment, and then continued, arcing across Raven's attack and hitting Raven herself. The resulting explosion sent Raven flying backwards, blue lightning jumping from fingertip to fingertip as her vision clouded…

"No!" Raven forced herself back to consciousness and flew back towards the tyrant, blasting her again with every spell she could think of that didn't involve dark magic…

The Queen deflected the attacks with the Blade of True Lies and fired back with a magic missile spell. Raven deflected the attack, but at the cost of some of her magic reserves. Worse still, the missile's explosion was large enough that it sent Raven careening through the air.

The Queen of Fables rushed at the half-demon, an evil glint in her eyes, betraying her increasing psychosis. "Off with her head!" the Queen cried, pulling her sword back and reading to slice Raven's head off…

"ZINTHOS!" Raven shouted---suddenly, she was gone from where she'd been falling and right beside the Queen of Fables… And another powerful blast of dark energy erupted from her hands, slamming into the side of the Blade of True Lies near the hilt, snapping the artifact in two…

"NO!" cried the Queen, dropping the handle and backhanding Raven across the sky. "For this insult I shall make your death slow and painful, child!"

The Queen of Fables raised her hands and the lightning all about her intensified, her aura growing in size and density, till the monarch of mendacity was barely visible through it…

"Burn!" she cried, and an enormous blast exploded from her hands and slammed into Raven, sending the Titan barreling through the sky, with no control at all…

And suddenly, she stopped, as though something… or someone.. had caught her..

Raven opened her eyes and nodded as her vision slowly faded back in, and she found her rescuer to be a White Knight come to challenge the Queen…

"Are you okay?" asked Savior? "Raven, answer me!"

"I'm… fine, Noel…" she muttered.

"We're still in the field," he said, trying to keep his tone harsh but not quite succeeding….

Savior landed atop the Space Needle, one of the few buildings still somewhat resembling its original form, and then sat Raven up. "Are you sure you're fine?"

"I'm disoriented," she said. "But I'm not hurting… Where's my cloak?"

Savior handed it to her. "The pendant that fastens it got blasted off during the fight."

Raven frowned, and tied the cloak around her neck with a simple knot. "I'm not strong enough," she said.

Savior frowned, and then pulled the story out of his coat. "Gauntlet… he said this would help you defeat her—if you use the curse that you used to seal Malchior…"

"Two problems," Raven said. "One, I can't get close enough to defeat her… she's burning herself up with magic energy, but I'm afraid by the time that happens it will be too late for the city... and two, most of her body is made of pure fictional energy, if that makes any sense. How do we trap her in a story if she's made of the essence of storytelling?"

"Hey," Noel said with a shrug. "We're seventy percent water, but we can still drown."

Raven blinked, not able to argue with the logic. "That still doesn't solve problem one.**  
**

* * *

The mood was somber on the highest buttress of the medieval castle that had once been Save A Lot Market. "Are you sure this will work?" Nigel asked… 

The storm that the battle between Raven and the Queen of Fables was producing had begun to intensify; blue lighting arced all across the sky, preventing the heavy hitters from reaching Queen of Fables. Those that had projectile attacks were using them, though, and it was helping Raven out some…

Or so Rob hoped…

"Not really, but it's worth a shot. Oblivion was created partly by the fusion of extreme magic power and my gauntlet. I figure if I channel energy from the lightning directly into the jewel, I'll get a similar effect."

"You sure you want to unleash something like that?" Nigel asked.

"Don't worry. It won't be as powerful as Oblivion, and I'll still have control over the mind since it won't be me and Noel fused this time."

Firmly grabbing the huge copper rod that he'd made from the penny blanks with a huge pair of gauntlet energy tweezers, Rob lifted the rod into the air where the magic lightning was the fiercest, holding towards the eye of the storm…

**_KRAKKA-BOOM!  
_  
**Lighting slammed into the pole and arced down into the Gauntlet…

**_KER-ZAP!_**

To put it bluntly, Gauntlet's idea didn't quite work.

To be even blunter, he got shocked.

Robert began twitching uncontrollably, smoke rising from his T-Shirt and jeans, his Gauntlet glowing with the lightning it was absorbing, but not growing to cover his body like Oblivion's armor had….

"ROBERT!" Nigel shouted, rushing over to grab the electrified Titan…. Of course, this was a fairly silly action given that the Blacktrinian was covered in metal and hence just as susceptible to electric shock as Robert..

Scalpel also began to twitch, though the lightning distributed between the two shocked them less than it would have otherwise…

But it still hurt. A lot.

However….

The effect was immediate. A huge portion of the lightning from the Queen of Fables' aura siphoned away from her body, straight down into Gauntlet and Scalpel…

And though they were feeling the burn, it made the Queen's defenses substantially weaker…

"Titans GO!" Robin shouted, ordering everyone who could to attack. And everyone complied; Cyborg and INSTIGATOR filled the sky with missiles, Jinx blasted Hex Blasts at them. Power Girl, Superman, and Starfire let loose a flurry of eyebeams even as Jessie and Grace began grabbing random things to throw at the witch…

The Green Lantern blasted her across the sky with his ring, sending the Queen careening into a building…

Where Raven was waiting. "Queen of Fables!" Raven shouted, using a soul-self claw to slam her into the building again. "This fight is over!"

"Nothing ends until I declare it!" the Queen ordered, hurling a flurry of fireballs at the Azarathian…

Her aura began to regenerate, but Raven attacked before it could do so fully, causing the aura to splinter into a thousand painful sparks filling the air around her…

But there was an opening, and it was Raven's only hope…

Raven lifted the horrible fan fiction in front of her and recited the curse: **_"Aldruon Enlenthra Nalthos Sola Narisnor!"_**

A blue-white beam lanced out from the glowing sheets of paper, crumpled in Raven's hands, blasting through the Queen of Fable's aura and striking the queen in the chest…"

"What? No! I cannot be defeated by such as simple curse!"

"Shut up and get in there!" Raven said, fully disgusted with the Queen's refusal to lose. She focused, sending more magical energy into the paper, and from there into the Queen, until the monarch could no longer resist; her body collapsed, shrinking into nothing, joining the energy as it flowed into the pages…

An so followed all the manifestations and creatures throughout the city; the buildings returned to normal even as the enchanted forest withered, as each of them seemed to be literally ripped from reality like a page torn from a book, and pulled towards the void where the Queen of Fables had been.

The huge army of orcs on the outskirts of town vanished into nothingness, even as Metatron and Viridian's reserves of ammunition ran dry..

And Gauntlet and Scalpel collapsed, relieved that their sudden shock therapy was over…

And when Raven was done, what had been just a few pages of bad fic was now a full volume of material, a leather-back book bound by vampire fangs… And on the cover, gold letters where emblazoned:

_Raven and the Queen_

"Talk about fact being stranger than fiction," Raven deadpanned**.  
**

* * *

Hours later, all the adult heroes having gone home, the Titans rested. Savior, Raven, and Gauntlet were on the roof watching the sunset, when Robert tossing something caught his eye. "What is that?" Noel asked. 

"It's a PDEM. I finally tricked Pangloss into giving me another one."

"Give me that!" Noel snapped, grabbing the tiny device out of the air and pocketing it.

"Hey, what gives?" Rob asked.

"The last time you had one of these, you used it to make a giant colore-coded indicator appear over the heads of all the terrorists in the world."

"So, what?" Rob shrugged. "I was supporting the troops."

"You were tampering in forces we shouldn't be tampering in. Politics and Superheroes don't mix."

"Whatever," Robert shrugged. "Say, whatever happened to that 'book' you sealed Queen of Fables in?" He was speaking to Raven, Noel realized.

Raven leaned forward. "Superman took it. I think he said something about burying it on Argos."

"I think we traumatized the big blue guy, ya' know," Rob said. "Is it just our personalities?"

"I think things like this are best left un-talked about," Raven said. "Superman will recover from whatever freaked him out so bad."

The rest of the Titans reclined in the living room of their tower, resting off the immensely hard day with video games and junk food.

Well, everyone except Robin, of course.

"Please, Tim," Starfire said, finding her love in the darkened crime lab, hovering over a computer. "Will you not join us for the celebratory nuts of dough?" Her smile implored him to come…

"Sorry, Kory." Robin continued typing, entering the data he knew and searching for clues as to what he didn't. "The HIVE Five got away. We were too busy congratulating Raven to notice them escaping."

"But…"

"It's okay, Star. Go have some fun. I'm going to finish up here and join you in a minute…"

"Okay… Tim…" Starfire glanced back at him one last time as she flew off. "Just do not expect friend Robert to leave any of the Strawberry ice cream.."

Robin smirked, and looked up at Starfire. "Strawberry, huh?"**  
**

* * *

That evening, the Hive Five (times two) returned to their base… to find it utterly demolished. 

Buzz Bomb greeted them, explaining that Brother Blood had gone to take care of some business, and that the ten that had gone, save for Billy Numerous, were all in big trouble.

"What the snot happened to the base, though?" Gizmo demanded. There was water filling the volcano precipice, so everyone had met on a hill overlooking the volcano layer..

"Crazzzzziest thing," Buzz Bomb said. "This huge GIANT came out of nowhere and fell into the ocean. The splash and resulting wave just washed over the base. We barely got evacuated in time!"

Gizmo and the others facevaulted.

"So…" Mammoth ventured. "Brother Blood is mad at us?"

"Oh, definitely," Buzz Bomb said. "Not just you though. While we were trying to assess the damage, Scorcher and the elementals showed up and re-kidnapped Wilby."

Shimmer smacked her face wither her palm. "Did ANYTHING go right?"

"Yeah," Billy Numerous said. "Didn't nary nothing happen that was worth a hill'a'beans? Like maybe Sabotage drowned in the wave?"

Suddenly Billy's arm became dislocated, and Sabotage stepped forward. "You think I'm that easy to kill, punk?"

"Aw nuts," Billy complained. "Well, so much for hopin'…"

"So…" Gizmo asked cautiously, "where IS Brother Blood?" **  
**

* * *

In Jump City there is an alley, and in this alley there is a door to a secret place. This door simply reads _Moriarty's, _and inside there seems to be nothing of interest at first glance. 

But this is merely an illusion, for what truly exists within the building is something entirely unimaginable. For this building holds the infamous urban legend, the Villain's Café. A place owned by the Titans' arch foe the Lord of the Night, Moriarty's is a restaurant and bar in which the villains hang out during their down time…

And occasionally get stalked by slasher movie monsters, though that's a different story.

Here it was that Psimon had gone after his escape from the bank with all the HIVE's loot. Where he'd spent the last six hours…

Gloating.

"And that's how I stole the money from the HIVE Students, right out from under their noses!" Psimon crowed gleefully.

"Yeah," Adonis said. "We KNOW. You have told us this story thirty times in as many minutes!"

"And I shall tell it again!" Psimon cried, "Until EVERYONE knows of my glory."

"Funny you should mention that," a cold voice said as it stepped from the shadows and stuck the barrel of a high-powered energy weapon to the back of Psimon's head. You could almost see a smile on the other side of the orange-and-black mask. "Tell me, Mr. Jones," said Slade, "have you actually ordered anything here tonight?"

Psimon didn't answer, instead shivvering where he stood, his mind visibly craclking with energy as he began to process what was happening. "You.. you can't be here. You've been in a coma for three years!"

The masked assassin tilted his head slightly. "I woke up," was his only response.

Slade glanced over at the bartender, Atlas. "Does he owe the bar anything?"

Atlas shrugged."He just had one beer, the detestable human."

Slade responded by grabbing one of the money bags Psimon had stolen and tossing it to the metalic bartender. "This should cover anything he owes the bar."

**_BLAM!_**

Simon Jones' body collapsed to the floor, even as Slade had the strangest sense of déjà vu. Then he collected the rest of the money bags and took them outside to the alley, where Brother Blood stood waiting.

"Very good work, Mr. Deathstroke," Brother Blood said. Slade gave him the money bags, from which Brother Blood allotted Slade three. "For services rendered," he said.

"It's been a pleasure doing business with you," Slade replied, before vanishing into the shadows.

All the while, Brother Blood, satisfied with the outcome despite the setbacks, decided he'd go easy on his students when he got back.

Just this once**.  
**

* * *

And deep within the realm of fiction, the Queen of Fables ran… Ran, and ran, from the horrible world she'd been sealed in… 

Her powers—her power over all fiction—seemed to be somehow negated in this place… as though she was trapped in not a story, but in an _anti-story._

In which the newest demigoddess on the planet—Space Raven, the fusion of Raven and God, chased after her, blasting her with super demonic electric dark freezing burning energy blasts.

"Come back!" shouted Space Raven. "I despise evil and fight for justice. Too bad you are not an inanimate object."

"What did I do to deserve this?" the Queen of Fables cried, fleeing the wrath of Space Raven. And for the first time in her life, she began to weep.

And weep, and weep.

And so, the Teen Titans and people of earth lived happily ever after. Or so I've heard.

The End.

* * *

**Maternal Instinct  
**

**Story by: Chaltab **

**Guest Writer: Ultra Sonic 007**

'**Defeat of Teen Titans Trigon Ruler of the Universe' **

**by ShadowSpyro  
May God have mercy on your soul by never letting you read any of his work**

**Starring**

**Scott Menville as Robin**

**Tara Strong as Raven  
**

**Hynden Walch as Starfire/Shimmer  
**

**Khary Peyton as Cyborg  
**

**Greg Cipes as Beast Boy/Private HIVE**

**Kevin Kline as Savior  
**

**Billy West as Gauntlet**

**Paul Lukather as Scalpel  
**

**Alyson Court as Sophie Matthews**

**  
Ashley Johnson as Terra/Jessie Quick  
**

**Lauren Tom as Jinx/Gizmo  
**

**Milo Ventimiglia as Metatron**

**Susie Brann as Viridian**

**Kevin Michael Richardson as Mammoth**

**Jason Marsden as Billy Numerous**

**Armin Shimerman as Psimon**

**Grey DeLisle as Angel/Grace Choi**

**Tom Kenny as Progeny/Peter Pan/Rhinoceros Beetle**

**Billie Hayes as Mother Mae-Eye**

**Colleen O'Shaughnessy as Queen of Fables**

**John DiMaggio**** as Libre/Brother Blood/Guy Gardner**

**Daran Norris as INSTIGATOR/Captain Hook**

**George Newbern as Superman**

**Tawnya Manion as Power Girl**

**and**

**Ron Pearlman as Slade Wilson**

**No pastries were harmed during the construction of this fanfic.  
Chaltab and his affiliates disclaim all ownership of the characters herein. Teen Titans and others owned by DC Comics. Legendsverse characters owned by the Team Legend. Space Raven owned by ShadowSpyro. I didn't make nary a dime off this fic, so please don't sue me.**

Thanks for reading and have a great life. Unless you've murdered someone. Then I hope your life sucks!


End file.
